How To Keep Squirrels Away From Your Birdfeeder!

I'm enjoying a pleasant Saturday morning watching the squirrels drop.

 Hey....it's not my fault! ....not entirely anyway. No one's forcing them to bungee jump without a bungee. And first of all, let me start by saying that no squirrels were harmed in the making of this blog, so you members of WeLoveSquirrels.com can go cuddle a squirrel or something. Don't get me wrong, I think squirrels are super cute, but they've devoured approximately $583 worth of premium birdseed in the past year in our backyard. Not to mention the $150 or so that my husband and I spent trying to rig something up that they couldn't get into.

This was our first lame attempt at keeping the
squirrels away. The plastic baffle worked for
about 7 minutes, but then they discovered that
they could easily just leap the six foot distance
from tree to feeder.






...so then we thought we'd outsmarted them by purchasing a shepherd's hook to put in the ground and placing it more than 8 ft from the nearest tree.  However, being the persistent little buggers that they are, they eventually figured out how to get past the baffle....





Well, we were not going to give up that easily....so my husband purchased an additional baffle (metal this time....) and it worked pretty well....until they started chewing the plastic baffle. Well, I felt kind of bad then....I mean, all the work they were putting into it... I imagined myself having to chew through the basement door to get down to the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the freezer, only to find that after spending 3 weeks chewing a hole in the door, that the freezer was locked and I didn't have a key. So I removed all glimmers of "squirrel hope" by replacing the chewed baffle with another metal one.

Ha!! .....it worked! Until the deer discovered the latest Birdseed Bistro and our birdseed was emptied faster than ever on a daily basis. Crap!

It was definitely a money-losing venture at this point. The deer were emptying it daily and the squirrels were mad as anything, but they still thought they could figure something out.

strategising his next plan of attack...
 this was in the spring...he's so fat.....I think he looks like the gopher in Caddyshack (or whatever that was...)




and on and on it went. Well, of course you know the story has a happy ending or else I wouldn't have been bragging about watching squirrels drop as I drank my coffee this morning. We had to go to a pet store and purchase a dog leash thingie (um, I'm not good at technical names) that had a 50 ft wire leash sort of doodad with a sliding whachama call it, they're easy to find at Petco or Petsmart....anyway, John (husband) tied it from tree to tree high enough that the deer can't get it and then placed the feeder far enough away to discourage squirrel acrobatics, and......it's working! Two weeks in and we've only refilled the feeder once.....and it's still pretty entertaining too... because the squirrels forget that they can't get at the birdseed so they do a high wire act to the feeder........encounter the first metal baffle....scramble, scramble....encounter the second metal baffle........... scramble..... Ker plunk!

How To Keep Squirrels (and deer) Away From Your Birdfeeder!

You Only Have One Chance to Make a Good First Impression!

.... gaak... especially when it comes to a first blog post.

Gosh-what do I say? I don't want to be too serious or  businesslike. That would give the entirely wrong impression.

I'm supposed to put stuff in my first blog about who I am and what this blog is intended for. So let's see.... wife...mother....blah blah....worked here.....worked there....did this....did that....I do have an associates degree in radiography, but my most important degrees are the ones I've earned being married to the same man for more years than I'd care to admit....not because I'm not proud of being married for so long, but because then you would just try to figure out how old I must be and I'm not so spiritually evolved that I don't care about stuff like that, no matter what the name of my blog suggests.

I was a stay-at-home mom of three for quite a few years, and I adored every minute. By staying home, I was able to earn an honorary degree in "Creative Finance" ....I minored in"Family and Consumer Sciences"..... I flunked "Child Psychology" and I got an A in my thesis on "Psycho Parents Who Truly Believe Their Kids Are Going to Play in the NFL"... it was pretty easy to write... I had a close relationship with all of the subjects.

The reason I'm starting this blog is that I began my career as a freelance writer about 39 seconds ago. I know that in order to make this work, I'm going to have to jump in the pool with all the other "big guns" out there and walk the walk. It's not like I'm not experienced though, I've been blogging in Microsoft Word for a few years now. But it's so unrewarding....nobody ever comments.......it's lonely.

Um, so anyway....just as in the title, this blog is going to be my place to come and hang out, write....and just be me.  Presently,  I am writing for DS and Suite101. That will change as I have a few more publishers' whose party I want to go to, but for now....one step at a time. Having said that though, I do have lofty plans.  I went out for dinner tonight with my husband and as we were sitting there chatting....okay, I was talking non-stop and he was was just sitting there unable to get a word in, but whatever....anyway; I asked him what he thought might happen down the road when he was dead and I was 97 and well.....what happens to all that passive revenue from my work when I die? 

...he said he didn't know.

 In the meantime, this is going to be my place, and I warn you....I'm going to be bad! I'm going to do all the things I'm not allowed to do out.... there.

In case you can't tell, I love exclamation marks!!!...I enjoy using bold. 
But most of all.....yup, you guessed it....I love "dotdotdot!!"

...need I say more?!!

Thanks for visiting. I hope you come back to visit again.