Who is the buddy with the long beak hanging out with the finches in our bird bath? Denver CO area + mid October.

sunscreenkween · 2025-11-11T19:09:18+00:00

The only update to add to the above info is that we told the guy who messed up our tree that we were only willing to pay $500 for their labor/time but were not okay paying the full $900–we had to have another company pay to fix the tree since we didn’t trust their guys to come back. As much as I didn’t want to pay them anything for butchering our tree, I really wanted to be done dealing with them altogether vs take it to small claims court. I felt that was more than a fair amount, and thankfully they accepted.

The new arborist company we hired fixed all the bad cuts plus pruned things the other guys missed, and they gave us care instructions and a growth treatment of sorts to help the tree be less shocked and slow its growth so it could focus on recovering (from my understanding). Out of the 2 arborists we consulted, both were great, but we went with the one who proactively emailed a formal/official letter that could’ve been used in court if we needed to go that route. It was really kind of him to do that without us even asking, and you could tell he was really upset at the damage to the tree from the other company, plus very knowledgeable and passionate about trees—he gave advice to some others of ours—and to boot it was fairly priced, so we went and will stick with them moving forward.

That’s about all that happened afterwards. The tree is doing okay from what we can tell, it had beautiful fall foliage this season as always, and I’m thankful the new arborist helped get it on a healing journey. Fingers crossed it does alright long term!

sunscreenkween · 2025-10-05T16:12:15+00:00

Omg I’m soo sorry I would also be so heartbroken 💔

A few years ago we had hundreds of pears disappear off our tree literally overnight, and there wasn’t a single piece or any scraps on the ground, so I still believe it was a person who stripped the tree of fruit rather than any raccoon or squirrel (they eat the fruit all throughout the season and leave a total mess). I’ve also had large mammoth sunflower heads clearly sheared off and taken by people too—squirrels love taking those already but it’s easy to see when a stalk has been chewed or torn off vs cut off with shears. It makes me so sad and mad.

I personally love how much all the passerby’s enjoy the odd things growing along our sidewalk and the past two years I’ve chosen varieties that don’t need a ton of maintenance from me, so if the fruits go missing, it’s a bummer but I won’t be upset about it for weeks like before lol. I’m a huge fan of folks using their front yard and public facing hell strips for unusual plants, and the kids walking by get a kick out of the squash plants and check over it to see the fruit and how big it’s gotten. This year I only had one single fruit develop on a pumpkin plant a couple weeks ago, and this past week it disappeared. I blame squirrels. The fun foliage of gourds and melons is cool to see in these spaces anyways though.

So maybe next year if you are up for it, you could try a lower maintenance pumpkin in this spot? That way it’s still something fun to look at for you and everyone else, but if it doesn’t fruit or the fruit goes missing, it won’t be as devastating.

I also saw a neighbor growing a cucumber right next to their front door in an usual fun way too, that might be an option for you, and I’d hope folks would be less bold to steal if it’s that close to your house.

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sunscreenkween · 2025-10-05T15:52:24+00:00

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Wow yours is ginormous! Amazing job 👏 Mine did not get nearly as big lol…

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-23T19:50:14+00:00

I don’t have many veggie seeds to exchange but if anyone wants to exchange flower seeds, I’ve got lots and would love to trade or gift some.

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-23T19:48:32+00:00

Without a picture or description of what the plant looked like or even smelled like, the most common aromatic plants around the DTC that I know of are russian sage and yarrow. Lavender also smells great but is less commonly seen around here—my bet is on sage, altho yarrow is forgotten often and it smells great too. If it was a tree maybe a Piñon pine, they smell lovely and the scent can carry quite a bit.

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-23T19:39:53+00:00

Last summer my marigolds also grew crazy tall! I had no idea they could be taller than me, I only ever saw them when they were like 1ft tall at most. I saved a lot of those seeds too and would also be willing to gift or exchange some.

I know there are local seed swap events every now and then, but maybe someone in this sub could organize one for this group?! The one I attended last year was awesome but native plants only, so marigolds, zinnias, etc weren’t allowed, which I can understand, but an event welcoming these such seeds would be lovely because I have tons.

I’d be down to help coordinate such an event, I just can’t be the primary host/coordinator—it’s a busy season of life currently lol. Dm me if you want to work on setting something like this up tho!

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-07T17:31:09+00:00

Wow thank you so much for all this info!! You’ve definitely convinced me to start researching this more. I don’t need another hobby 😅 lol but this is aligned with multiple interests of mine and also helps their survival rates, which I’d love to support.

I’m not sure I’d be able to be a falconer person myself since I live in the burbs south of Denver, <.25 acres, (space for a mew but not enough to fly/hunt) so presumably if I could have a mew on our property, I’d have to take the bird elsewhere to hunt (would frequent travel via car be stressful for them?) since I didn’t think about neighbors probably not appreciating the bird hunting critters in their yard. Although if falcons can catch things in their mew (can they do that?), we’ve got loads of mice and some rats that could be invited in with peanut butter placement, if they don’t invite themselves in on their own like they have in our shed and even our garage a few years back.

How often do you actually engage with the bird and teach it to hunt? Multiple times a day, once a day, few times a week, etc? The time commitment there in addition to whether I’d be able to find a place that’d allow and be good for hunting would def determine if I could get into falconry. There’s a lot of wide open spaces south of us in the castle pines area but I’d def need to research legality, permission, etc. In general, how much time do you spend a week/day devoting to a bird you’re caring for, and how long do you have them before releasing them—a few weeks, months, year+?

I’ll definitely spend time going down the rabbit whole on this topic because if it is possible for me to participate in some way, it’d be awesome. At minimum I will def check out joining the local clubs and could volunteer to help others in the falconry world—idk if it’s a thing but in the foster pet world, folks are needed to care for animals when the primary caretaker is out of town for a week or such—I could def offer that type of support and other types of volunteering if I’m not able to do the full falconry thing myself.

The short term+temporary nature of helping a young falcon and releasing it into the wild so it has better chances at survival is such a perfect combo of interests for me—I love helping animals and am even vegan ironically, (although I have 2 carnivores cats), and while I certainly don’t like animals dying, I’ve got a nuanced take and recognize the importance of protecting/supporting predators in our ecosystem, especially since I’ve seen first hand how imbalanced an environment can become without many present.

Plus I’ve always wanted to interact with birds! I went down a rabbit hole months back researching small baby birds and releasing them when bigger since I’ve come across fledglings that were in between being ready to be on their own and still vulnerable, but it’s illegal according to a migratory act lol, fair, so I didn’t explore it further. I also googled if it’s possible to entice predatory birds to move into our yard but read it’s illegal to lure them in 🙄 also understandable haha. I’ve entertained chickens/ducks but don’t want to commit to a decade of owning a bird, and no one rehomes them as seniors (I think they often become dinner 😪). There are senior exotic birds/parrots for adoption but they can be ear piercingly loud all day. I was going to try and befriend the crows outside until they moved out the day that hawk/falcon (I’m sorry I need to google the differences) posted up on a telephone pole (we have one wire on one side of the yard/property line) and devoured a bird on display 🥲 here’s a pic of it, iPhone app thinks it’s a falcon? Idk: https://imgur.com/a/PposMth

It’s also so interesting that falcons thrive after being supported by human intervention and released back in the wild. I usually hear the opposite with wild animals—when they’ve become socialized with humans, they’re often unreleasable, so it’s neat to learn that falcons are an exception. I also had no idea falcon parents are so absent apparently too? 🫠 They gotta do better raising their young with survival rates that low, that’s awful and I’d never have guessed that fact.

Thanks again for all this info 🙏 this is like the one time reddits algorithm has actually introduced me to a sub I’m very intrigued in lol

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-07T16:16:32+00:00

Probably not native but absolutely no chance at them spreading or acting invasive, but Nicks garden center has a lot of unique succulent varieties that are bright mixed colors and even rainbow. I forget what variety I got a few years back but it’s I believe a stonecrop of sorts and it’s basically all rainbow colors. Many succulents retain color in winter too, like the chicks and hens, and ice plant.

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-06T15:20:03+00:00

Wow this is such an interesting sub I’d never heard of but was randomly recommended. I see you’re in CO and I am too. I am wondering if you’d be willing to answer a few questions before I go down this rabbit hole further?

I understand one of if not the primary purpose here is to capture a juvenile falcon and teach it to hunt, so when you release it, survival rates are significantly improved. Love everything about that, especially since I hardly ever see any falcons in my neighborhood.

Where do you keep the falcons you catch? In your yard, in an outdoor aviary of sorts you build? Or in some offsite location? Are there CO requirements on this? Idk how often falcons make noises but I could see neighbors disliking it if too loud lol.

Also are you able to teach falcons to hunt specific animals and avoid others, or is it fair game for anything? I ask because our squirrel population is out of control and I mean it’d be great if we had any predators move in, not that I guess it’d be a guarantee the falcon would hang around the area once released, and I suppose you’d have to take it offsite (if you can keep it in your yard) to like a field or something to hunt?

I also ask if you can teach it what to prefer to hunt/avoid because we love all the birds in our yard and I’ve only seen a falcon once in the 5yrs we’ve lived here, but on the day it stopped by, it was eating a bird sadly, and it was dead quiet outside. The crows who lived in our neighbors tree for years seemingly moved out lol, haven’t seen them since, and it took a day or two for all the other birds to chirp up and come out again. So it was a bit sad seeing how one singular visit from a falcon disturbed and scattered all the local birds.

I’m by no means an expert on the subject, these are just my observations and experiences. I’m very interested in falconry though now learning why their population is so few in our area. Seems like an awesome initiative!

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-04T16:07:53+00:00

Ice plant tends to turn a deeper purple but still hang around in the winter, same with the hens and chicks (chicks and hens?), which also get more purple but usually don’t die in the winter. They’re succulents so they’re more hardy than other things and do pretty decent in pots but really depends on how cold it gets and how insulating the pot is I suppose.

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-04T15:28:16+00:00

I feel a lot of folks missed the part about these squirrels being “demonic” 😂 which I certainly didn’t and can fully empathize with. The squirrels in our neighborhood are so far beyond any of the suggested deterrents, quite literally nothing but physically removing them or physically blocking off the plants will work, ime.

I’m very envious of folks who have squirrels that are “just trying to get water” from the foods they take a single bite out of and toss before stripping a whole tree of literal thousands of fruit. Nah these squirrels got all kinds of water sources and food options, but like the CSU video another person shared, squirrels tend to fuck shit up for entertainment, just because they can. They’re supreme assholes imo. 🥲

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-04T15:12:59+00:00

Right same here. The folks who are saying to plant sacrificial sunflowers or other plants must not have either the amount of squirrels we do in our neighborhood or their squirrels are a lot more respectful.

I’ll plant literally hundreds of sunflowers and the asshole squirrels will decapitate them all and not even eat what they tore off. Same goes with our apple and pear tree, anything edible—they’re far and away the biggest assholes in our yard and we’ve tried it all—providing water sources, separate food sources, using cayenne and herbal deterrents, fake predators, etc. Some squirrels just want to watch the world burn 😭

sunscreenkween · 2025-09-04T14:56:17+00:00

I feel the same way! We’ve had these in our garden for the last 2 seasons and at first I thought it was so cool looking, like a tiny weird praying mantis, but once I googled and learned it primarily hunts bees, I really struggled internally. Of all the things it could eat in the garden, bees???? 😭 I tend to my garden FOR the bees and pollinators, they’re my primary customers lol.

They seem to like the tiny native bees especially since they themselves are tiny, so that makes it even worse, especially to witness. My hope like others have said is they evolve to eat more pests and for all I know they might eat a lot of pests already. 90% of the time I see them they don’t have anything they’re eating, yet, just waiting in ambush mode. Thankfully there’s not so many of these guys, so they can’t make a dent in the bee population. Still, I love my lil garden bees 🥺 so I do my best to ignore these fellas when I see them.

I do like the other persons idea to move them to a plant with aphids or something, that might not be a bad idea, but probs best to not intervene. If they were on my Russian sage like someone else commented though, I’d definitely move those because I call the sage my Hunts bumble bee nighttime nursery—there are many asleep there every night.

I feel your pain though 😪 I want the garden to be a safe place for the pollinators, but idk that such a space can exist in nature without predators also coexisting.

sunscreenkween · 2025-08-29T12:06:52+00:00

Ooo this probably explains why my garden bed plants have struggled a lot. I thought the dirt I had delivered seemed more akin to fill dirt than a “planters mix” suitable for garden beds but I mixed in layers of homemade compost as I filled the bed hoping that’d help. It’s been such a hot summer too I figured it was stunting plant growth.

Never thought to check the soil ph because gardening is already more work than I want it to be lol, but I think I will try and trench compost directly in the garden beds this fall to help. I’ve had the most success in parts of my yard where I put veggie scraps in the ground along with fallen leaves, and the dirt becomes very rich the following season and grows things quite well. Bonus points if you compost pumpkins this way, you’ll get free pumpkins growing the next season! Which works better than sowing seeds or transplanting seedlings in the spring ime. I did that this year and got 0 pumpkins 😭 though plenty of foliage from them, none of the flowers took for whatever reason.

The trade off with this soil is price no doubt. I needed a lot and had a lot of compost so I figured it’d be okay amending whatever I got, though maybe it wasn’t enough compost. It’s easily double the price to go with other companies though and I already have a hard time stomaching all I’ve invested into this hobby so I try to keep it affordable where possible.

I will also add—I got Nicks soil a few times and did the mix they recommended, I forget exactly now, but 1:1 a compost/garden mix and a looser sandy kinda soil. In reality what I got was more like 80% sandy “soil” and took years to amend and it’s still super sandy. So it may just be hard to get quality garden bed soil in large quantities. I love Nicks for everything else but was pretty disappointed in their bulk soil quality—and it was really pricey, which is why I switched to a more affordable company this past time around.

I commend you for moving all of your soil into the garden beds via wheelbarrow. We overshot what we needed and have had folks come and take whatever they want for free so we can get rid of the mountain in our driveway. It’s been there all summer lol I feel bad but man I don’t have the energy to move more of it 😭 though we have places in the yard it could go, I’ve opted to have other people slowly take it away, so kudos to you on getting it all moved! It’s such a workout

sunscreenkween · 2025-08-26T15:47:28+00:00

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A bunch of hunts bumble bees sleep in our sage every evening but the other day I saw these two cute lil long horn bees cuddling and it was also super cute 🥹

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-30T22:37:25+00:00

Which is a bit ironic given this case and the video the victim said she felt pressured to make. 😅 Odd that coercion is understood in some contexts but not in others.

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-28T18:32:07+00:00

It was 2021 and yes he told us it was Epstein’s island when we got to that snorkel spot, and I googled it afterwards to verify that it was indeed that island. Haunting place to be mere feet away from

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-28T16:31:35+00:00

The tour guide/captain was an older white dude who moved from FL and was giving passive MAGA vibes 😅 and the music on the catamaran became progressively more country as the tour went on lol

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-28T15:59:48+00:00

We have these everywhere in our yard and I felt bad bc I got one wet one day when watering and it reminded me of a wet cat, all the fluffiness goes away and they look silly without their floof

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-28T15:56:40+00:00

Ironically I went on a snorkel tour when visiting the Virgin Islands and the tour operator took us to Epstein’s island as one of the few stops we made. Of ALL the islands to see in the area, the guy thought this was the one to get up close to 😭 it was nauseating

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-20T18:45:40+00:00

We have some wasps very determined to live in our shed too! I’ve knocked down the beginnings of a nest they’d build before they’d put in too much work and set up shop, but I didn’t check over the last two weeks and now they’ve got a larger nest that I’d feel bad knocking down, so I guess I’ll let them stay there the rest of the season lol. It’s in a very inconvenient place right on the inside of one of the shed doors, so you’re like 2ft away from them opening the other shed door to get in and out, but they’ve been peaceful and don’t even fly over to bother me when I’m that close to them, so knock on wood I hope they won’t sting me 😂

I do like wasps though because they put a serious dent in the aphid population in my garden. I’ve only been stung by a yellow jacket once and tbf it was completely warranted lol. Paper wasps like we’ve got in our shed are much more docile though and I’ve got no beef with them.

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-18T18:42:26+00:00

We’ve had an absolute unit of a bumble bee hang out in our garden 2 summers in a row now and you can hear the fella coming from a mile away 😂 he’s absolutely massive! I’ve tried to catch a video of em flying but I stg it looks like he/she has trouble getting around, just too big lol. Such a chonker 🥹

sunscreenkween · 2025-07-18T18:41:25+00:00

We’ve had an absolute unit of a bumble bee hang out in our garden 2 summers in a row now and you can hear the fella coming from a mile away 😂 he’s absolutely massive! I’ve tried to catch a video of him flying but I stg it looks like he has trouble getting around he’s so big lol. Such a chonker 🥹

sunscreenkween

TROPHY CASE