Showing posts with label squirrels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squirrels. Show all posts

Monday, December 31, 2007

Around and About





Another up close and personal view of a frequent visitor to the birdfeeder hanging outside our dining room window. (Jo's photo -- 12/28/07)













Seedpod from some member of the milkweed family, I suppose. Found on our walk on Christmas day.















The only snow remaining after four days -- on a north slope that never gets any sunshine and insulated from the warm ground by a cow pie. Cow pies are obviously good insulators, but I don't think I'd want to fill the walls of my house with them. (Photo from 12/30/07)
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Baffled -- Not!




You just cannot baffle the squirrels when they can jump straight up and grab the bottom of the log-type feeder. (Photos from Saturday.)


Bits and Pieces over the past few days:

Friday evening and most of the day Saturday it rained. We picked up another 2.25 inches, giving us a total of around five inches of rain for the week. The pond is looking in a lot better shape now. Fortunately, very little precipitation fell after our temperature dropped below freezing Saturday night. No snow, sleet or icing.

We've been battling with a bad telephone connection for several days. Sometimes, no phone. Most of the time, the computer wouldn't stay connected. Every once and a while, things worked fine. I was convince the telephone company had a problem up the line somewhere. I was totally wrong -- again. We have a shorted line in the house.

I really wanted to replace that telephone line Monday, but the dogs said we should go cut more firewood instead. Rusty and Bucket insisted that it was rediculous to be crawling around in the attic on such a bright and sunny day. I removed the shorted line from the system so the other two lines worked and we cut more firewood.




Firewood

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Friday, December 14, 2007

Thursday Sunshine




Our "driveway" bathed in glorious sunshine. In honor of this special event, I decided to cut some more firewood. Jo's main project for the day was fabricating some squirrel guards for our birdfeeders.




Squirrels are always something of a problem, but this year seems especially bad. I reckon that's because the squirrels don't have their normal supply of acorns, honey locust pods, etc. Last spring's late freeze killed the blooms on most of our trees.

The funnel-shaped guards Jo made look kind of tacky, but seem to be doing the job so far. However, engaging in a test of wits against the squirrels makes one feel like Wiley Coyote trying to outsmart the Roadrunner. I would be very surprised if the squirrels don't find a way to circumvent the guards.

After Jo finished with the guards, she and the dogs walked up to where I was working and helped load firewood. Jo was much more help than the dogs were.





Biologists with the Arkansas Department of Game and Fish are saying that deer and wild turkeys are already beginning to alter their feeding habits due to a lack of mast. The animals are spending more time feeding in open field and food plots. However, these biologist also say that there should not be any serious increase in mortality because the deer and turkeys have enough other sources of food -- assuming we don't have a prolonged period of bad winter weather, that is.

Weather: High = 57. Low = 31. Sunny skies with a light north wind.
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Monday, November 26, 2007

Sunday Fog




We spent all day Sunday in the clouds. I don't know if there is a difference between fog and being in a cloud from a meteorologist's point of view, but I can tell you that they are the same when you are surrounded by them. If you stand outside long enough, you'll get wet – or, at least, very damp. I know from past experience that during a drive off our ridge and down into Bear Creek Valley, we would have dropped beneath most of the fog. Down in the valley it would have been much less foggy with a low, overcast sky.

In addition to the constant drip, drip, drip of water off the roof and trees, we also received some rain. According to our trusty rain gauge .8” fell in the morning and we received another .3” in the evening. That's not a great deal of precipitation, but every little bit helps – and it was a slow, gently rain that all soaked into the ground.

Sunday was the kind of day where Rusty and Bucket motivated Jo and I to get a little exercise that we otherwise would have gone without. We would have been content staying warm and dry in the house, shop or studio, but the dogs expected an afternoon walk so we ventured up to the gate. The trip wasn't bad, though we did get a little damp. Jo and the dogs got wetter and had to cut short their morning walk when rain began.


Bits and Pieces from Sunday, 11/25/07:

I cleaned and repaired a rabbit cage so that we could move a couple of our young rabbits. It was an unusual cage-repair session in that I survived without getting wounded. I seldom make it though a rabbit cage repair session without scratching myself on the wire or pinching myself with the pliers at least once.

The squirrels are really cleaning out our birdfeeders this winter. They're always something of a nuisance, but this year I think they are worse. The squirrels have little else to eat. The late freeze we got last spring while most of the trees were just beginning to leaf out and bloom means there there is very little mast this fall. We don't even have any honey locust pods for them to nibble.

Jo got her pots glazed and the kiln loaded. Unfortunately, not everything she wanted to include in this firing would fit into the kiln. She figured and re-figured at least a half dozen times, but there's just no way she can get another glaze firing done before our next show.

Weather: High = 42º. Low = 35º. 1.1" rain.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Tuesday, 10/16/07

Spent most of the day trying to get back into my daily groove (rut?) after returning from an art fair in Springfield (MO) this past weekend.

This afternoon I did a little cleaning up out in the garden. I cut down and removed the dried corn stalks and tossed them on the brush pile out behind the garden. We'd decided to save the dried out ears of corn that remained on the stalks for the squirrels. Evidently, the squirrels got wind of our plan and decided to go ahead and help themselves. This morning I saw a squirrel carrying an ear of corn across the yard. When I got out to the garden this afternoon, I noticed several bare corn cobs laying around the garden. And, when I started removing the stalks, I found no ears of corn that still had any corn left on them. They'd been shucked and eaten on the stalks. Nothing except a bare cob remained.

I really don't have a problem with the squirrels salvaging the corn we didn't get eaten, but now that the corn is gone and the squirrels have identified the garden as a source of food, I certainly hope that they don't move on to our remaining tomatoes.
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