Squirrel and the bird feeder

Shortly after we moved here in July 2000 I mounted a bird feeder on a 4 X 4 post and put a piece of used stove pipe on the top 4 feet of it to keep the squirrels off. It worked for quite a few years then one of them learned to drop down from a tiny branch about 8 feet above. Although I promptly sawed it off it seems like ever since it's been a continual competition between them and me.

When we added the porch last summer I had to move the feeder because it was so easy for them to jump to the feeder from the porch roof. I carefully measured how far it was from all the trees around and thought I had it far enough away. However at least one has learned to jump about nine feet from a sturdy oak tree off to the right of the picture below. It's quite fun to watch him climb the tree and spend a fair amount of time adjusting his height and staring at the feeder before making an amazing jump over to the roof where he digs his claws into the somewhat rotten wooden shingles and feasts.

Then Tim noticed when he was here this past weekend that one was also getting to the feeder by jumping up the post and using his hind feet to jump all the way up around the stove pipe.  So Saturday I used scrap aluminum siding to wrap the post below the stove pipe and used another two pieces to put an aluminum roof on the feeder. 

I'm sorry the quality of this picture is lacking a bit if you look closely you can see that a squirrel is attempting to jump from the ground up to the feeder. I'm happy to say he couldn't make it.  The best attempt though I didn't capture with my iPhone. That was last evening when we watched as the squirrel made it's preparations by climbing the tree going through his usual calculations in his walnut sized brain and made a perfect leap to the top of the roof but alas he couldn't get a grip and went sailing straight off the other side onto the ground. It was quite funny to see.

I thought he was going to try it again this morning and I was prepared this time but it seems maybe the pain and embarrassment he experienced last time deterred him from trying again.

Ramblings

Most of the time I like to have a single theme for a blog post but I have a number of unrelated subjects today so this is "Ramblings". I could have titled it Sunday morning missive which I used to email to you all but it is neither Sunday morning nor is it an email although most of my followers will get this post by email.

Glass shard that was in Jonathan's thumb for a month

When Jonathan came home on March 8, Lois helped him pull a small splinter of glass from his thumb. A week later when he returned here from his trip to Seattle and Southern CA his thumb was still bothering him. A few days later he saw a doctor in West Lafayette who dug around for a while but couldn't find anything. Today he sent a picture which I've blown up here so you can see the shard he says "popped out" last evening. It was in his thumb for about a month. We're almost as glad as he is that it's out.

Happy Birthday Eldon! I asked Grammy this morning why this day was important for Eldon and she couldn't remember. I'm sure she was aware of it 66 years ago!  When Pappy was 66 (1984) they were living at Cochranville and he was still working full time selling spreaders - I think.

2013 maple syrup

Last weekend we finished up our maple syrup season. We only had two taps in this year instead of three but the weather was really good for sap production. I didn't keep up my spreadsheet of how many gallons of sap I harvested but based on the end product of about 6.5 quarts, it must have been about 65 gallons of sap. We tried several different methods of cooking sap this year. The weekend Jonathan was home we hooked up a copper tube to the place where the pressure bobber valve usually sits on an old pressure cooker and ran it into a tub of water. The problem was you couldn't monitor or add sap without removing the lid. So we did a lot of it in crock pots again.  I really would like to build an outdoor oven for next year. Lois and I have agreed on a spot to do it on our property but it will be a lot of work.

The treasurer for our church who has been doing an excellent job for about 15 years recently stated her intention to pass the work on to someone else. I have decided to volunteer for the job although I was hoping I'd be retired when this opening came along. I will enjoy some of the work but it does add up to about an hour or two a week.  I have chaired the finance committee for several years so I'm more familiar with the work than anyone else. It feels good to be useful for our church.