Bird Feeders are for The Birds!

Just in the last few months the squirrels have discovered the bird feeders. I'm referring to the "regular" squirrels who are trying to be our mortal enemies*, not the flying squirrels who we think are great and are welcome to visit the bird feeders. So, as if that weren't bad enough, Monday night a post-hibernation bear decided to visit the bird feeder, too!  And bend the hook it's hung from to boot!

Please also notice that the before photo has LED string lights, but the after photo does not. *Remember this?

It must have had to get up on the deck to do this, so that's something to think about! It also got into our garbage can and spread some of the contents around, but not too much. Eric was able to pick it up while mostly nekkid in the dark and without his glasses while trying to get Betty back in the house. He'd let her out for mid-night tinkles, but she stayed for the trash frenzy and snuffling around the yard. I did find the wrapper from the pork ribs that Eric barbecued on Saturday out by the vacant chicken coop, though there is no telling if it was the bear or the Betty who drug it out there.

This is our first springtime bear event on the property and has made us decide to try to re-institute bear country best practices, i.e. putting the trash can in the shop instead of by the back door and bringing in the bird feeders at night. I wonder if it's the same bear that "processed" our apples last autumn?

No. No one actually saw the it. In fact, it wasn't until I saw the state of the bird feeder that we became certain there was an interloper at all, let alone a bear.

Wildlife Watch !X

We've caught our local flying squirrel visiting the bird feeders several-to-many times several times since our initial meeting back in January 2013.  But I finally got some (crappy) photos of my own!

I was sitting in the hot tub the other night and heard the scratching of wee claws on the tree by the deck on which the bird feeder hangs.  I was cruising pinterest on my phone and tried to use the light from the display to see. No dice.  So I texted Eric to ask if he'd turn on the deck light. He did, but I saw nothing, but a swaying bird feeder.

The two lower light smears are it's eyes!

When I went back into the house, I grabbed my digital camera and tried the and turned the deck light. There it was sitting on the swaying feeder!  I turned the light back off, but the results were less than satisfactory with the "night vision" setting.

Obviously the night-vision setting wasn't going to yield results, so I resorted to the old fill flash. At least, I think that's what it's called.

One Year is Cookies, Right?

Anniversaries seem like a good time for looking back and for lists and since we've now been here on the side of this mountain for a year, I thought I'd share with you some of the lists we've been keeping both in our heads and written down.

When a dear friend sent me a surprise giftie in the mail of a woodland creature cookie cutter set that had a a fox AND a porcupine* I decided to make cookies of as many of our locally spotted critters as I had the cutters for. Luckily, I have a lot of cutters and I'd already started this post as a handy-dandy list. Neither Eric nor I are huge fans of cookie icing, so I applied only outlines. The cookies are Martha Stewart's shortbread recipe.

Critters we've seen at home or within a few miles of home:
Furry
White-tailed Deer
Mule Deer
Foxes (we've each seen them one or more times in the daylight since this post)
Flying Squirrels
Red Squirrels (I think)
Least Chipmunks (I think)
Skunks (one visual down the mountain a bit, one purely olfactory at the house)
Rabbits (probably Mountain Cottontail)
Marmot, probably the Hoary kind usually along the road, sometimes "sleeping"
Porcupine ("sleeping" by the highway)
Black Bear (cub)

I tried to include a turkey and a duck  cookie, but the turkey dropped when I tried to move it to the cooking rack and the duck wouldn't come out of the cutter with both its feet or its bill.

Feathery
Mallard Ducks
Wild Turkeys
Bald Eagles
Blue Heron
And these:

Plus two different as-yet-unidentified larger, grouse-yish types.

Creepy-crawly/fly-y
Phyciodes orseis herlani butterflies
Some kind of swallowtail butterflies (9 species in Montana)
Other Butterflies
Yellow Jackets
Wasps
Horse Flies
Flies
Mosquitoes (just a few)
Ten-lined June beetle
Western Conifer Seed Bug
Etcetera and so forth

I spotted the Ten-lined June Beetle one night on the deck when Eric was setting up his small telescope for us to peep some stars.  He's REALLY big and freaky looking in the dark, let me tell you. (the beetle, not Eric)  We all played it fairly cool though; the beetle went about his beetle business and we peeped stars. (photo from wikipedia)

Scaley
Mystery Jumping River Fish or Fishes
Mystery Swimming Creek Fish or Fishes

It has been interesting for me, whose only memories are of living in Northwestern Oregon, to get used to this type of forest and it was fun (and a bit of a relief) to watch it get so green and relatively lush in the spring. From late-May to mid-June or so our part of the National Forest was carpeted with wildflowers. I bet we saw more than 2 dozen kinds over that time in the area within 10 minutes walk from the house.

We've lived through all four seasons (five if you include fire season) and can already tell this autumn is cooler, wetter, and less smokey than last.  We've already had a few fires in the wood stove, something we didn't do for a few-to-several weeks after we arrived.  We've had a few weeks of overcast and rainy weather, not real rain-rain, but probably what passes for real rain-rain in these parts.  If your head is covered (with lots of hair or a hat) you don't even really get wet and what wet you do get drys really quickly.

Eric with our Realtor, Sherry Kolenda, on our one viewing of the property back in August 2012.

We've done some cosmetic work in eight rooms. When I itemized it here and looked back at so many posts to make the links it seems like a lot has been accomplished.

Laundry Room (not yet photographed or posted even though it was the first room I painted, etc.)
Kitchen (appliance)
Living/Dining Room
Upstairs Hall Bathroom
Master Bedroom
Guest Bedroom
Master Dressing Room
Master Half-Bathroom
Plus replaced ALL the door knobs

When I think about the things we still have on our list to chance it seem like there's a long way to go.  I think that the stairwell and upstairs hallway, the master water closet. and the downstairs bathroom are at the fore of my mind.  The first three can probably be accomplished with just a little money, but quite a bit of work. The last one will be quite a bit of work, too, but will probably require more supplies be purchased to get to the image I have in my mind.

And tomorrow is October 1, one year from the day I took this photo.

Damn.


* I'm sure it's supposed to be a hedgehog, but as long as it lives under our roof it's a porcupine!

Odds & Ends

There are just a few interesting or fun things I wanted to share, most of which really aren't worthy of a whole blog post.  I'll deliver them in the order that they were discovered.

1) I was having a key made at Ace and while I waited I was looking at the end cap right between the key making machine and the cash register.  I realize this is a hunting tool, but I still think the merchandising/branding is strange.

Also available in cow "flavor."

2) For those keeping score, I am getting almost adequately competent at pumping my own gas!

$2.96/gallon!  Well, closer to $2.97/gallon with that .9 cents, but still.

3) Information that makes this make sense: A) I don't walk around the hot tub in daylight very often. B) The snow had melted off the deck a few days before it started snowing again; yesterday morning we had a fresh 3/4" or so. C) Betty is one of those dogs who likes to greet us with something in her mouth (even if it's just to say good morning when each of us gets up).  Usually it's a toy or bone, but sometimes it's a small article of our clothing she's gotten out of the basket, a slipper, or shoe.

What is that?  Oh, frozen panties.  Of course.

4) The Alexanders left Christmas lights up around the living room window year round as a way to welcome each other home if one or the other arrived home late and they left them up for us.  E came home after dark yesterday so I had them on and while they don't put off much light they did enable us to see the Return of the Flying Squirrel! 

I used the "night vision" setting which is why it's all green and grainy.  That is not why there are dog nose smudges all the window.

Wildlife Watch V

There we were last night, sitting in the living room each minding our own business when I looked up to see one of the bird feeders swinging wildly.  My first thought was, "Boy, it is windy out there."  Then as the bird feeder swung around to show the other side I saw what looked like a squirrel or chipmunk.  Its face seemed different and it was not the same color as the others we occasionally see around (and thankfully it's only occasionally as we still haven't gotten over our distaste of squirrels from living in squirrel-infested SE Portland where they were at times actively chewing on our house).

This is the comic book hero maneuver it used to escape into the night, narrowly avoiding Eric's villainous clutches.
[photo source: http://www.dianshu119.com/index.php?doc-view-603.html]

I notified Eric who turned to look, but by this time its face was hidden and by "hidden" I mean "buried in the birdseed."  Eventually the feeder swung around again so the invader was out of view, so Eric went out to try to get a better look.  He gingerly poked the feeder so it would swing around and we both got a fleeting look at the creature then it flew off the feeder and into the night. 

[image source: http://www.mnh.si.edu/mna/image_info.cfm?species_id=105]

When Eric came back in, I said "I think it was a flying squirrel!"  Then, I looked it up on the state Field Guides site and sure enough, we live in their range and it looked like the photos I found.  We had no idea there were flying squirrels here!  Or that they were nocturnal bird feeder invaders.  Maybe we need to leave the porch lights on more often.