I hate Squirrels!!!

OK, not really.  I am quite annoyed with them at the moment though.  I do have to admire their persistence and intelligence; however, do they have to use their evil genius for destruction?  I guess that is what evil genius is for though.  Hmmmm....

You're probably wondering what the squirrels have done now.  Well, they have figured out yet another way around the supposedly "squirrel-proof" feeder...

They've started to eat it!!!!  

That's right, folks.  They've started to eat the plastic to get to the seed inside.  Of course, I didn't notice this little fact until I tried filling the feeder and all the the seed I was putting into it started pouring out.  It made a mess of the deck.  I'm sure any mice and birds were rejoicing.  Hurrrumph!

The Photographic Evidence

The feeder in normal non-activated mode

 Notice the hole behind the perch and metal leaf

Feeder in squirrel activated mode

 The metal leaf blocks the bird port, so the squirrels ate the plastic under the port.  Now they have even more access to the seed when they are robbing the feeder.

Jim's Solution:

Cover the squirrel-made holes with metal.  Gnaw through that you stupid squirrels!  LOL!

I'm sure they'll find another way to get the seed.  Squirrels are resourceful!  They always find a way to get what they want.  ;)

I think my next feeder will be a "squirrel-proof" one made of metal and glass.

I hope something like that actually exists...

And Finally as Promised...

Whoops!  Looks like it has taken me a little while here to post the pics I promised about 2 months ago.  ^_^*
If you can remember, I promised to post pics of the posters we found in the attic.  From what we can see from these posters, either a butcher used to live in our house; or someone who was infatuated with meat.  In either case, they were definitely not a vegetarian.  LOL!

First up is this spiffy Beef Chart.  

 There were also similar posters for Pork and Lamb

Next up is this Wilson's Meat Chart that has metal edges on the top and bottom to make it easier to hang.

This one is for the Lamb cuts, but we also have ones for beef and pork too.

I like their logo: The Wilson label protects your table.

Besides the butcher charts, we also found posters featuring living cows.  Each is labeled with American Angus Association and range in date from 1961-1966.  The posters are prints of an actual painting made by

F. C. Murphy.

Aberdeen-Angus Bull

 Oh no!  Look out, Buddy!  There is a storm coming through!

Aberdeen-Angus Steers

 I wonder if they actually look this rectangular...

Aberdeen-Angus Cow and Calf

 They kind of remind me of hippos.  :)

Aberdeen-Angus Calf

 Awww!  Isn't he cute?

Breed Improvers on Parade

All of the poster seem to be in good condition.  None of them are in mint condition, but still decent looking.  If anyone has any info on these posters, please let us know in a comment or emailing us.  I tried googling them without too much success.  Also, if you saw these and thought to yourself, "Gosh, I wish I could own those!" please make an offer!  :)

The other pictures I promised were pics of the clothing we found stuffed in our walls by the east window of the guest room.  I discovered them stuffed in the bay to the right of the window.  These don't look too old, so I'm guessing they got their when the previous owners replaced the windows.  I think they were purposefully stuffed there.  I don't think it was a case of the clothes being stored in the attic and falling through the gap in the wall because the clothes were surrounded by the blown-in insulation.  The clothes were pretty packed together, and my first thought was that something (or someone) was wrapped in them.  Fortunately, that wasn't the case; it was just clothes crumpled together to fill that cavity.  It was mostly stained baby clothes, which I threw out.  Here is what I did save to take pics of...

A little girl's dress

And the most disturbing of all the clothes...lingerie!

I don't even want to know the why and the what of the brownish-red stain on the left breast.

I said it once, and I'll say it again.  "Why, oh why, would someone put lingerie in the walls?!"

Moving along...I attempted to take a picture of our Christmas tree from the outside.  This was the best I could  get at the time.

I know our decorations (or lack there-of) are quite pathetic at the moment, but I'm sure we'll build it up through the years.  One thing is for sure though.  You will never see an inflatable in our yard.  I find those to be quite tacky looking.

And of course, what is one of my posts without some pictures of nature!  ^_^*

 The best pic I have taken of a female cardinal yet!

The male cardinal must read this blog too!  He wanted to prove me wrong after I poked fun of him for not being able to sit at the feeder.

 The female cardinal is looking down on him so proudly.

A new bird has been spotted at the feeder!  I'm sorry for the blurry pics, but this was the best I took.  

 After doing some research online, I believe this bird is either a House Finch or a Purple Finch.

Something so amazing happened to me today that I just had to share with all of you.  This is a true story!  There I was minding my own business and eating lunch. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear?

Two squirrels have a snowball fight!

Are you on Team Grey Squirrel or Team Black Squirrel?

Hahahaha!

OK, enough of the fun.  Jim has texted me saying he is on his way home from work, and I need to figure out what to make for dinner...

Toodles!

Trouble with Trees

As I have previously posted, Jim and I have been looking into having some of our trees removed.  I never did receive the email estimate from the 2nd arborist, and the 3rd one was a no-show.  We got a tip to look into a 4th tree service guy.  He did come out and gave us a great estimate ($1,600), but he wasn't going to use a crane to remove the huge silver maple.  This didn't sit well with us, so we ended up chosing the first guy that had come out.  We called him to set up an appt time to meet to go over details and sign a contract.  We got a call a few days later saying that he had to cancel because his crane just broke and he wasn't sure when or even if it could be fixed.  He sounded so dejected on the phone.  Well, that put us back to square one.  We have since looked into other arborists, and have decided to go with Davey Tree Service.  

He came out last Friday for a free estimate.  We told him what we wanted, and he gave us some good info about some of the other trees on our property.  It turns out that we have quite a variety of trees.  We have silver maples, red maples, red oak, white oak, green ash, and black walnut.  We also have various pines, but we didn't ask him about those.  He gave us an estimate that turned out to be less than the guy we were originally going to use, plus he is going to do a little extra stuff.  So, in the end, it works out for us that we had to look elsewhere.  He told us that he'd have a huge crew of workers come in, and  that they can remove the huge silver maple in one day!  I think we'll have to see that to believe it.  We were standing in the drive just chatting with him when we found out that he was recently the consulting arborist for the White House.  He told us stories of  the secret service shooing the arborists out of the trees whenever Obama was returning to the White House from a trip and  also of playing with Obama's dog.  That is kinda cool.  We're glad he waited to tell us this until after he gave us an estimate or we would have been worrying about just how expensive he was going to be.  lol.  I mean, if he was good enough for the White House...

In other news, Jim and I have finally gotten around to chopping down the 2 trees that were small enough for us to handle on our own.  My dad loaned us his pole saw, and Jim practiced using it on my dead stick bush.

  Good thing he practiced.  lol.

  

After gaining experience points, Jim moved on to the first tree...the mulberry tree in our backyard.  This tree was too close to our foundation as well as our well.  Why the previous owners planted it there, I have no idea.  If they didn't plant it there, why the heck did they let it continue to grow?!

Anyhoo, here are some pictures of the process.

This is during...

I think Jim had fun.

And to give you faithful readers a good idea of what we did, here are the before and after pics.

Before

After

I think it looks a lot better without the tree.  I wish the tree had been somewhere else on the property because it was a cool looking tree.  The leaves were quite interesting.

After the mulberry tree was taken care of, we moved onto the dogwood in the front yard.  This was a beautiful tree as well, but it was unfortunately too close to the foundation.

Here are some pics during the unfortunate murder.

Blame the previous owners, poor tree, for planting you too close to the house.

Here are the before and after pics.

Before

After

We were laughing at the poor confused squirrels the next day because they used both the mulberry tree and the dogwood to go back and forth.  We had just essentially destroyed their main highway between the front and back yards.  Whoopsie!

However, I did feel a smidge sorry for this little guy.  He sat on our front stoop this morning and mournfully squeaked at the dogwood stump.  He sat there for at least 5 minutes squeaking.  It was as if he was giving the dogwood's eulogy or something.  He didn't stop until Jim opened the window to try to get a better picture.

 I call the first pic, "The Chipmunk's Lament".  :p

That's about it for now.

Housewarming #1

Our first housewarming was a success!  We had invited people to come either Saturday (with bonfire) or Sunday.  Just about everybody came on Sunday.  lol.  I guess they weren't interested in burning stuff and eating smores.  Oh well, maybe another time.  We had adequate parking; only one person had to park behind the garage.  We also had plenty of food, and Jim did a good job grilling the hamburgers and hotdogs.

Here are pics of Jim playing croquet and grilling (not at the same time).

I like to call the first pic, "The Men of Croquet".  Do you like Jim's grilling uniform?

There was also a nice breeze blowing to cool our guests for most of the party.  We had a tent/gazebo set up for food, and we were able to use the picnic table I worked so hard on to fix up.  I was given a lot of compliments on the table.

Here are some views of the party scene

We also had a volleyball/ badminton net ( I always thought it was badmitten.  lol.) set up in the back, but I don't think anyone played.  I think I ran out of plates near the end, but people just used napkins.  We had plenty of fresh fruit left over (including an entire watermelon), so we've been eating a lot of fruit ever since.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the house tours.  I laughed when my cousin Missy informed her brother that she booked the next tour for them.

Our guests also enjoyed watching the squirrels and chipmunks.  I don't know if the black squirrels made any appearances on Sunday, but here are some pics of the grey squirrels.

The last pic is of one trying to chew through the metal of the squirrel-proof cage

I know a few of the chipmunks crashed the party as well.

It is sticking its tongue out at me in the first pic.  : P

Also, here are some pics of a moth, a new flower, and some birds.

I have been trying to get better pictures of my cardinals, but they are such divas and fly away as soon as I bring out the camera.  I'll get you my pretties!

Almost Caught Up

Whew!  After this post, I will have totally caught you all up on what's been happening.  Sorry for the barrage of posts.  I will try to keep a more consistent post schedule.  

OK, first up is our picnic table.  Last month, Jim's grandmother gave us her picnic table.  It had a rough winter and wasn't in the best of shape.  I would rate it code red for splinters.  I decided to take the project on myself and borrowed my dad's electric sander.  I spent an afternoon sanding it smooth.  I then went out to Ace and bought some deck stain.  Unfortunately, I think they mixed the color up wrong because it turned out way more orange than I wanted.  I had picked out a medium brown shade, but I just rolled with it.  I wanted to get this project done.  I spent another afternoon staining it.  I was quite dirty by the time I was done.  I gave all surfaces one coat of stain, but I gave 2 coats to the seats and table top.

Here is a pic of the finshed picnic table.  I'm sorry, I forgot to take a before pic.

I'm quite proud of my accomplishment.  Thanks, Grandma for the picnic table!

I wanted to show you the cool rock that Jim's mom found while working on the hedges.

I think it looks like a slice of bacon.  Mmmm!  Bacon!  ^_^

I was a little worried 2 weeks ago when the city started repaving our road.  I didn't know how long it would take, and road construction always seems to take forever.  I was concerned that our guests would have a difficult time arriving to our housewarming if there was construction.  Well, it only took them a week to do it, so now we have a nice new road to show off to our guests.  Woot!

I love gazing up at the moon, and it was particularly lovely a few days ago.  I attempted to take pictures of it, but they of course don't do it justice.

However, I think these are the best ones I've ever taken.

I've also noticed that the fireflies are out and about already.  I was mesmerized the other night watching them in the fields across the street.  They literally made the fields sparkle.  I also made a wish that night on the first star I saw.  It was a lovely wish, but I can't tell you what it was.  I just hope that it comes true some day.  It is the same wish I always make.

Next up are some wildlife pictures I've taken.

I managed to get closer to a chipmunk while I had the camera on me.  I think I caught him off guard.  I especially like the middle picture, but you'll have to click on it to see it larger.

Just yesterday, I had remarked to Jim that I was surprised we hadn't seen any rabbits in our yard yet.  Well, low-and-behold, this one hopped out of a bush in the the backyard this afternoon.

And last but not least, a pic of one of our black squirrels.  I think this is the best one I've taken of them so far. They usually hang out near the very back of our yard and run up a tree before I can get close enough to take a decent pic.

Trees, Bushes, and Plants, Oh my!

Here is another picture post for you.  I hope people are actually enjoying all these pics.

First up is my wild strawberries.  They may be small, but their taste sure packs a punch.  I'm surprised my commune of chipmunks haven't eaten them all up yet.

Maybe there will still be some good ones for my party guests to enjoy.

Here are some grapes and possibly plum or some type of berry?

They are just babies though.

Here is a pic of my ash tree.  Also, I think my squirrel crop is coming in nicely, don't you agree?  Almost ready for picking.

This ash tree is one of my favorites on the lot.  It is a late bloomer though, so we first thought that it was dead.  I'm so happy that it wasn't.  I call it my miko tree.

After some consideration, we decided to get rid of the hedges on the side of the house entirely.  We have cut them down, and now only small stumps remain.  I'll eventually put some type of colorful flower in their place.

The pic on the right is my toadstool garden.  I hope no smurfs were living there because Jim mowed them down shortly after this pic was taken.

Maple trees are quite tenacious.  Entire forests want to grow in our gutters and lawn.

Here is a pic of Jim attempting to tame our wild forsythia bush.

He still has a long way to go, but we won't be able to get to it until sometime next week.

Here is a pic of Jim also trying to reign in the wild raspberry bushes that have taken over the grapevine.  How am I supposed to pick grapes later if they are guarded by raspberry thorns?

Believe it or not, there is a grapevine in that first pic.

That's all the plant gossip for now.

Runs like a Deere...shot in the head

Ok, so Jim and I have recently purchased a new John Deere riding lawn tractor.  We were originally going to buy a Troybilt Bronco, but just before heading to the store, I checked reviews online and they were horrible for that model.  We ended up paying the extra money for a quality John Deere...or so we thought.  The first problem was that our brand new mower arrived with rusty blades as you've seen from Jim's post.  We managed to get the rusty blades off and exchange them (no charge) for new ones.  The weather was pretty rainy since then, so our mower sat in the garage waiting for a sunny day.  That day finally came, and we were eager to get started on mowing our lawn.  Unfortunately, the darn thing wouldn't start!  We thought it might be the battery, so we went to have it checked, but it was fine.  Jim's Dad was over on Monday, and the 2 of them tinkered with it in the garage.  They managed to get it to start, but it was after 8pm, too late to mow.  When Jim got home from work, we tried to start it up again, but it wouldn't start.  I went outside to call Jim to dinner, and noticed that one of the headlights was burnt out as well.  Well, we had had enough!  This was a brand new mower (a John Deere at that), and we shouldn't be having all these problems.  We called up Lowe's and demanded a new mower.  They first tried to convince us we should just bring it in for service, but we stuck to our guns and insisted on a swap.  They finally agreed.  They have our model in stock, but none of them are assembled yet.  The certified John Deere guy is supposedly supposed to come in this week to assemble them.  Lowe's will give us a call when he comes, and we can make the switch at that time.  In the meantime, our lawn keeps growing.  I'll make apology cards to our neighbors either tonight or tomorrow and explain the situation so they don't think we are just ignoring our lawn and call the city on us or something.  

Here is a pic of Jim reattaching the new-new blades.

In other news, I've been fighting a losing battle against the squirrels.  I've been trying to prevent them from eating the birdseed from the feeder.  I don't mind if they eat the fallen seed on the ground, but these squirrels are little piggies and can eat a full feeder in just one day.  They also prevent the birds from eating at the feeder.  Well, so far the score is Squirrels-3/Amanda-0.  They do make for great guest entertainment as I found out from Kristi's bridal shower that I hosted.  There is also one squirrel in-particular that I have a soft spot for.  He seems to be a hybrid black squirrel.  We've named him/her Shadow.  (I know original, right?)  Anyways, I've taken a few pics of Shadow for you guys to see.  He seems to be smarter than the other squirrels.

Shadow the semi-black squirrel

  

I think he was posing for the camera.

And last but not least, I wanted to post some pics of the lovely farm across the street from us.  The pictures don't really do it justice though.  I also tried to zoom in on their 3 horses.