I caught a squirrel hanging upside down on the cedar and hardware screen
pulling out black sunflower seeds as fast as he could, but my Daisy pellet
rifle took care of his ass. He has plenty of food in the woods that
surrounds me, I have no pity for him. I'm a dead shot. Because of him or
his
kin, I have began finding walnut seedlings popping up in my raised beds,
and
if you don't find them before they get up to10 inches, it will take
something more than a tug to get out of the clay based bed. Anyone who has
to battle black walnut seedlings knows their taproot is as deep as the
shoot
is tall........I never miss. He now has a hole in his ass.

Shame on you MG -- rubber pellets maybe, but BBs?

By the way, I don't shoot birds, not even the crows or ravens or
blackbirds.
If I ever see what a grackle is, though, I will change my ways. I have
NEVER
seen such abilities to strip a sour cherry tree as these guys have.

We're doing a lot of our plantings and such with the wildlife in mind. I've
long since given up on getting much out of this tiny plot.

We've stopped getting the deluges of rains, Knoxville to the west, and
various other surrounding areas in the mountains have all sorts of major
problems with rushing bodies of water careening down steep hillsides and
mountain sides. I sit on a ridge, but everywhere there is a low point in
the roads I travel, I have to pass thru at least 4-6 inches of water due
to
all the pastures and filled ditches that run right alongside the roads,
(there are hardly any standable shoulders on these roads, so if you have
to
walk down them, you're screwed......)

The snow and sleet are killin' us up here!

I'm putting together plans for a new platform feeder that I hope to build in
the next few weeks. It's going to be the primary feeder for our rear
yard -- I'm looking forward to bringing in a few other species of birds.
Got a red belly woodpecker today -- amazing the woodpeckers we're getting
for such an urbanized area.

James