HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2009!

May you be blessed with good health and happiness and
success in meeting your New Year's
resolutions all through the year.

Book Finished

I don't get to do much reading for pleasure doing the school year so when brief stints of vacation roll around I try to pick up a book. I had heard about Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin from my former pastor. She gave an inspiring sermon based upon the book and then started the Pennies for Peace campaign among the congregation. I had put the book on my list to read but hadn't gotten to finding a copy. Before Christmas I was speaking with a friend and she had just finished the book and offered it to me to read. I finished it yesterday. It's an amazing story of dedication and selflessness in this world of materialism. If you haven't read it, I hope you will.

Suet Feeder

Several weeks ago I bought a suet feeder which I hung off a birdfeeder. I filled it with a suet block that contained red pepper to discourage the raccoons and squirrels. Within two days the suet feeder was gone. Totally gone. No evidence that it had ever been there except for a few links of chain.

Last weekend I bought a new one when I went to Wildlife Authority, my local source for bird seed. More about them in a bit. They had one left that was a cage within a cage. The outside cage allows the birds to get into the inside cage filled with suet. The bottom allows the woodpeckers to cling to it and get to the suet. To discourage any marauders I bought a long hook and then hung it from a high tree branch. If the squirrels comedown to it they won't get into it because of the caging. It's too high for the raccoons.

When Emily comes later this week for Christmas I hope she'll get a picture for me of the red bellied woodpecker clinging to the bottom eating suet.

As to my favorite bird store, I'm afraid they may be going under in these tough times. They had everything on sale for 20% off except seed and looked to be liquidating all of their existing stock, with no new stock replacing it. I got the last suet feeder of its kind when I went last weekend. I hope they can hang on.

Fox Sightings and Other Visitors

Last Wednesday I was seated at this laptop when movement caught my eye. I looked up and saw a lovely red fox walk through my backyard along the edge of the glen. It stopped under my new suet feeder and sniffed up at it. It won't get any closer than that (but that's the subject of another blog) and then veered off over the edge of the glen.

About ten minutes later the same thing happened again, but this time the fox was moving faster as though it was chasing the first fox.

Yesterday morning I looked out the bedroom window at the backyard and there was the fox again trotting along the edge of the glen from west to east. I called for Dan to come see and as we watched the fox veered to its left and came up on the deck, lifted its leg and marked the upright beam with its urine! It continued on the deck and Dan speculated it was going to do the same thing to the other beams, but we lost sight of it as it continued east our sight obstructed by the rest of the house.

The other visitors have been the regulars: birds and deer. The latter I just chased away from my English laurel bushes. They were having a fine breakfast out there. I didn't think they liked to eat those kinds of leaves. I haven't seen any evidence of them eating there before. But why am I surprised? They eat anything that's green.