Among Friends

[possummink]

[possummink]

[NickNack]

I feed safflower seed in a hopper feeder, nyjer seed to the goldfinch and sunflower seed in a Squirrel Buster feeder.  I do have a squirrel guard on my bird feeding station.  Recently I started feeding woodpecker blend cylinder seed.  I am just thrilled to have bluebirds come to the feeder now.  I see as many as six at a time at the cylinder seed.  Unfortunately, it's very expensive and the blackbirds like it, too.  I just open the door and they fly away, but I can't watch them all the time.  I hate having that seed eaten by the blackbirds.  I wish there was a way to control that.  

I'm not going to quit feeding it, though, because seeing the bluebirds is too enjoyable.

We were supposed to get up to 3" of snow last night but only got a dusting.  It's still snowing lightly though and is icing.  It's a good day to stay inside.

[Bird mama]

We got about 6 inches of snow yesterday.  I shoveled once mid storm then did it again after 7pm when the snow had stopped.  As I was shoveling the front sidewalks I saw a flash of pink/purple.  I can't say I heard a sound because I had my music pumping in my ear buds.  The first thing I thought was a transformer blew an I immediately turned around (I was facing the street) to make sure the house lights were still on.

We've got windchill of -11 right now.  It's going to get worse before it gets better.  The birds and squirrels ate well earlier in the day.  Once the wind started to pick up everyone scattered.  I just saw a mourning dove eating on the patio - that little bird was getting blown around. I felt bad for it.

[possummink]

[possummink]

 Hi Birding Friends.  I copied the below text from the Cafe thread.  It's a long tale about how we spent last night without heat in the house.  Not one bit of fun and it only got down to 7 degrees last night.  Tonight -2 or -3 degrees with windchills in the -25 to -30 degree range.  Hope the furnace keeps going.  

""It's taken a long time to warm up today. At about 1a.m. this morning I noticed the house was really cold and checked the thermostat. The furnace was not running. It was in the 50ies inside. I hit the reset button and it came on, but stopped. Hit the reset button again and same thing. I came back upstairs, told my brother and put in a call for our repair guy, Jason. His answering service would have him call in morning if we could get by. I said ok. Then I got to thinking that I hadn't seen the oil truck here for some time. I asked my brother and he said they'd been here 10 days ago, he thought. I called them at 7am and they had a truck here at about 8 -8:30. The tank holds 225 gallons and it took 226.7 gallons. The driver started the furnace and it's been running almost all day trying to warm up this house. 8 big rooms, 3 baths, hallways, etc. The temp in here was in the 40ies when the furnace was restarted. Very hard to sleep, I stayed down stairs on the sofa with a fuzzy hat and fluffy throw. The cold air aggravated the cough, so sleep was hard. Caught up a bit this afternoon.""

My brother was a bit off on his estimate of when the oil company had filled the tank last.  I called and asked them to check and they told me Christmas Eve.  We were on the 'fill' list for this week.   I think we need to be on a 'sooner fill' list if these below normal temperatures continue.   Of course by Super Bowl Sunday we may hit 59 then another slide in the temperatures.   59,  is a heat wave!! 

[possummink]

For most of the Winter feeding season,  we've been pretty lucky in that the Starlings hadn't been coming to the feeders.   When we got the 12 inch snowfall, they started coming, just a couple and that was fine, but now they are increasing and they 'hog' the feeders so that the Cardinals and all the smaller birds have a heck of a time getting a chance to eat.  

Grackles are the same way when they show up, but otherwise all the others seem to feed rather peacefully.   I don't begrudge any bird a meal, but I don't like the bully tactics of the starlings and grackles.  Grackles can be downright mean and dangerous to the small birds.  I don't have any solutions for this problem,  but do bang on the window if I see the bullies hogging the feeders.  

[possummink]

[Winifred]

Oh my gosh Possum - I truly believe you almost froze. Maybe you all should keep a chart of when the oil company shows up. LOL. Nah,, but would make a note of it. Am sure, however, the worst of the cold is now behind you - perhaps - but still, you do not want to freeze anymore.

Not a bad day here today but enough is enough with waiting AGAIN for more rain. WEnt looking for my extra sandbags and guess what - like many other things I HAD, they all disappeared. So went to Home Depot and bought 16 more - hope I do not need more than that. May not need any but all day have been hearing go to the Fire Station there are still sand bags available. Supposedly we MAY need them over the weekend. Never had EVER used them until about 4 years ago when after the drought we were flooded out and I zipped to the hardware store and got some to put out in front of the carport. About a week ago when we had a lot of rain water crept into my carport. Problem is the gravel in the driveway is almost gone. I had the 1/2 to 3/4 inch gravel - the brand new enlarged water pipe exploded in front of my house the first night they put it in. 

What a nightmare and the water company had to replace all the gravel - I could not believe it but they replaced it with pea gravel. No brains in that horrible decision as that slowly - no quickly disappears - every time you walk on it and drive in it. That gravel is so small it sticks to everything. And then there is the occasional kiddie who tosses it. Hmn - wonder who could have done that. Ricky? Leah?.

Sleep well everyone!

[possummink]

Winifred,   I felt like I was freezing for a while.  It took a bit of time for the fluffy throw/blanket I have on the sofa to contain the body heat I had.  The thing is,  when my nose is really cold,  I can't sleep.   I wish I knew how to knit,  I'd knit a nose mitten.  Having that dry cough back didn't help either.    I got a couple of hours of napping in this afternoon and that helped a lot as the house was warmer.   I don't know if the furnace has stopped running.   It's 9 degrees right now and the wind chill is -7.   We had some snow showers today but no accumulation.  

I hope you don't have to deal with flooding.   I have some clay soil over at the other house and it's great for the roses I used to have.   That house sits at the top of our hill and it's a pretty good sized hill for being so close to the two big rivers here.   

The water company should have used a much larger size of gravel than pea gravel.  Wonder who makes those silly decisions.   Our water company has decided to collect payments for usage every month now instead of quarterly.  Stupid as it costs more to bill 12 times a year instead of 4, etc.  I don't get the mentality of some of the 'powers that be' these days.  It's like everyone is crazy or not far from it.

Keep warm and safe.    Oh  almost forgot,  how's Ditty doing??  Miss Blackie??   Pets for both of them.