Amir Ali

Quail are the easiest backyard birds I’ve ever kept. They’re small, quiet, and coturnix hens can lay an egg almost every day. But they do need the right home. Quail are tiny, nervous and very good at getting picked off…

The first spring after I hung a homemade birdhouse, a pair of chickadees moved in within a week. I spent way too many mornings watching them fly in and out with tiny bits of moss. It was the best entertainment…

I bought a roll of chicken wire for one garden project. The roll was huge, the project was tiny, and the rest sat in my garage for months. Then I started looking at it differently. That simple hexagon mesh can…

I didn’t think much about egg storage until we started buying farm fresh eggs. They came in a cardboard carton that sat on the counter looking sad and soggy, and I was always worried someone would knock it off. A…

The first time my cat cleared the back fence, I didn’t even see her jump. One second she was sunbathing on the grass, the next she was on top of the fence looking very pleased with herself, and then she…

My cat has a 6 a.m. alarm, and it’s me. She sits on my chest, stares, and taps my face until breakfast appears. Then she gulps it down in thirty seconds and asks for more. That’s what got me into…

Scratch, scratch, meow. Open the door. Five minutes later, scratch, scratch, meow. Let me back in. If you live with a cat, you’ve probably spent more time as a doorman than you’d like to admit. A cat door ends all…

Every cat owner knows this story. You buy a beautiful cat bed. Your cat sniffs it, walks away, and climbs into the cardboard box it came in. Cats like what they like: warm, soft, a little enclosed, and somewhere they…