Well, I showed you the visitor to our birdfeeder. However along the way we had a bit of an adventure with some other critters that like birdseed. Or, really, damned near anything.
When my mother sent us the birdfeeder she included $10 with the explanation that it wasn’t practical to ship birdseed. Fair enough. So my darling girlfriend went out, looked at the options, and opted for pure sunflower seeds. As it turns out that’s about what the goddess of homemaking suggests as well. Once we got it home, however, we realized our initial intended place wasn’t going to be able to support the feeder and I’d have to come up with some other way to mount it. So we put the seed on the porch out of the way and I put another item on my shopping list for when I next went to Mecca Home Depot.
A few weeks later someone else found the bag of seed and decided they’d like to do some preliminary testing to make sure it’s okay for the birds. Now, normally I’m okay with feeding the little tree rats – I think they’re cute. But its not what we bought this seed for and they were having their version of a kegger on our patio, crapping and peeing all over our bench there behind the feed. I don’t even like having to clean my own bathroom, I’m sure not going to do it for the Alpha Kappa Sciuridaes
So I went out and got a storage box for the feed when I picked up the crook, which I’d wanted to get anyway. I knew it wouldn’t keep them out long-term but I wanted to see how long it took them to wriggle it open. As it turns out it didn’t even slow them down long enough for me to get out of bed – I took this when I came downstairs the following morning. So I piled some firewood on top of the box and went about my day. By afternoon they’d somehow shoved the wood off and gotten right back in.
So I moved the box to the other side of the patio, pushed it into the corner, put a big spool of coax I had out there on top of it and braced the roll on the other side.
This bought me a day, apparently until the squirrel army could muster up their little ropes, block and tackle. I came downstairs to discover this fellow nibbling away and the spool off to the side. Note the lack of one of the lid flaps – they managed somehow to get it completely off the container. I considered a padlock but I feel confident they’ve all read and mastered the MIT lockpicking guide.
The container is in the house now. I give it a week before they muster up the troops to stage a full invasion. Here’s hoping they don’t have body armor.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
