Well, I just about froze my toes off doing my good deed of the day

[conuly]

I was outside feeding the birds, no coat, slippers on, when I heard the distinct sound of gushing water. Obviously my first thought was that one of our pipes burst, but no, I am pretty good at remembering to turn off our outside water every year. Burst pipes are expensive.

It was the neighbor. And I apparently got him out of the shower to let him know, which explains why I had to stand on their porch knocking for three minutes. If it had been much longer I would've given up and called 311 about it instead.

In other news, one intrepid squirrel has figured out how to baffle the baffle and get nuts from the peanut feeder which is for the blue jays. Honestly, I ought to just put cayenne on them, but then I'd have to wear garden gloves or something to refill the feeder rather than doing it barehanded. It's not that I don't want to feed the squirrels, it's just that they'll leave nothing for the jays. I'll need to think about this some more.

In other other news the mockingbird has been a more frequent visitor lately! Gosh, it's pretty.

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Comments

[movingfinger]

The only thing that has deterred squirrels consistently, in my 96-year-old mother's decades of feeding birds, is a stovepipe baffle placed on a freestanding feeder pole. The one I got her has four arms, so she has a couple suet feeders and a couple seed feeders up there, and the squirrels can only get there if there are deep snowbanks around. The feeder is placed far enough from the roof, the overhanging branches (which have been trimmed back over the years anyway), and tree trunks that the squirrels can't jump from there. I think the distance recommended was 8 or 10 feet.

We tried everything! The Yankee Flipper, the bird feeders that close under a squirrel's weight, etc., etc. But the stovepipe baffle actually works. Squirrels and raccoons seem unable to beat it, without, as I said, deep snow to elevate them high enough to jump past it.

[conuly]

Yeah, well, there's nowhere in our yard that's 10 feet from everything.