Wind In My Face

Posted on 29/11/2022 by Grumpa Joe

I sit here wondering what I will write about as Lovely and I just returned from a late morning walk and are tuckered out. The wind is out of the south and very strong. Yahoo weather claims it to be between 19-21 mph. Yes, that is strong. I remember the days when I still rode a bicycle to commute and on the way home from work I faced a south wind that often stopped me dead. Even though I have granny gears to climb steep hills they sometimes aren’t enough to ride head first into a stiff wind. God forbid I have to restart when the wind is that strong. Starting into the wind becomes downright impossible, and many times I turned around to start with the wind at my back and then made a U-turn to return to the direction I needed to go. Balancing a bike when riding into that strong wind is a lot like walking a tight rope, progress is slow and wildly unsteady.

The gusts this morning hit hard enough to stop us from moving forward. I told Lovely to walk behind me so I would break the wind for her. Thank goodness it is only three blocks to the Old Plank Road Trail which is flanked by trees and the wind is cut off. We finished our 1.5 mile walk in thirty-five minutes and were glad to enter into the quiet stillness of our home.

Lovely always complains about the wind. This morning the only conversation she braved was to ask me to move to a place where there is no wind. “It doesn’t exist” I told her. Even in places that are warm during the winter months there is always wind. I remember once coming out of a movie house in Peoria, Arizona during early afternoon, and the sky was beige. It kind of looked like fog, but it was sand. Visibility was limited and there was stinging in our eyes. It wasn’t pretty.

As a ten year old kid, my cousin Joe, who was a lot older than me, and who had kids that were the same age as me, telling us a story of one of his cross country driving trips to California. He described traveling in a desert sand storm so violent that the visibility was only a few feet. There were no places to stop to rest, he had to keep moving. When the storm finally finished the paint on his car was gone and the engine needed an overhaul. I couldn’t imagine such a fury. Dad didn’t drive further than Michigan. That afternoon coming out of the theater I recalled Joe’s story and finally believed every word.

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Thirty Minutes

Posted on 25/11/2022 by Grumpa Joe

is the longest it took for Super Squirrel to beat my modified squirrel guard. In a previous post I told the story about how I had to build a new bird feeder and how the squirrels found it fast. I’ve been through this process before, and I know what I have to do keep these little pests out. I love squirrels just as I love birds, but I abhor squirrels who eat all the bird food before the birds get any. My challenge is to deter the rascals by out smarting them. So far I am losing.

The modification I made was minimal, but took only a few minutes to implement. I drilled a series of holes around the perimeter of the stove pipe and filled the holes with two inch long screws. I thought this would do the trick, but the industrious Super Squirrel kept at it until he learned that there was enough room between the barrier screws to squeeze between them. Now that he has learned the knack, he can make it up the pole under the stove pipe in a one super smooth move.

There are several steps to try next, but have I have a conundrum. Do I waste time implementing small steps or do I do what is right, and stop the nonsense?

Before I modify the stove pipe again I have set out a suet feeder on a tree away from the bird feeder. The hope is that Super-Squirrel will prefer some tasty suet over plain old seed.

Stay tuned.

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Pay Off

Posted on 20/11/2022 by Grumpa Joe

The new bird feeder is paying off big time. Although it will cost me an arm and a leg to keep it full. The pleasure of seeing a flock of birds pecking away at seed on the ground and in the feeder more than makes up for the cost. I even enjoy watching the occasional squirrel stuffing himself. No doubt I will join the group of squirrel challenged adults and join in the Squirrel Olympics. There is nothing more mentally challenging than watching these athletic rodents and devising methods to deter them. To date, my record is zero versus 100’s of wins for the tail flipping critters.

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The Squirrel Guard Needs a Revision

Posted on 19/11/2022 by Grumpa Joe

Let the battle begin!

Two years ago, I tore down a bird feeder which had provided endless entertainment for me and the family. I was preparing to put the house up for sale, and the ratty looking weather beaten platform feeder leaned five degrees northward. I didn’t think prospective buyers would be impressed. Since then I have changed course and am not selling the house or moving anytime soon.

I have breakfast every morning at the window watching the yard, and I realized that I miss seeing the birds. In fact, the yard was conspicuously quiet of birds and squirrels. It was time to build a new feeder. What a great way to break in my newly remodeled workshop with a simple wood working project. I didn’t have a plan, but I did have a pile of grey scrap wood that was in my way, so the feeder began to take shape.

The last feeder was never painted, I rationalized that birds would be deterred from newly painted wood and left it au-naturale. This time, I had some left over paint and decided to give the bird cafeteria a fresh new look. In a few days I had completed the job, but no longer had a post to support it. It too, had been scrapped. Again, I scrounged the wood pile next to the house to find something. At first I thought a piece of PVC pipe could do the trick, but decided it was too flexible to support the heavy cafe. Aha! I spotted a twisted two by eight about seven feet long. It had such a severe twist in it that I never used it for any other job. I pulled it out and set up on the patio to rip it right down the middle to make two pieces of equal cross section. I glued and screwed them together to make a 4 x4 post. A birdie in my brain told me that burying a wooden post into dirt causes the wood to rot, and the post will go the way of many fence posts. More scrounging uncovered a sheet of aluminum. It became a simple matter to clad the end of the post with aluminum to slow decay. Finally, I painted the post and moved on to the final step.

Time was running out, and if I delayed digging a hole for the post any longer the ground would freeze and the feeder wouldn’t open for business until late spring. Two days later I finally found my post hole digger and began digging. The first twelve inches through top soil went quickly, the next ten inches was through clay and took thirty minutes of digging to accomplish, but the post went in, and I was worn out and happy. Cafe de Bird was ready. I poured a cup of bird seed onto the floor and made a bet with my wife that it would take twenty-four hours for the birds to find it. Naturally, I lost, they were pecking at seed within two hours of opening. Side by side with the birds was a young squirrel. I delayed adding a squirrel guard until I saw a need for one. Well, the need happened almost immediately.

More scrounging through my various piles of junk around the house uncovered a section of sheet metal used to form a stove pipe. It became a simple matter to cut it down to size and install it around the post. The theory of the pipe is that the diameter is too large and slippery for a squirrel to grasp and they slide off. It works. I used one on the previous feeder. I made a bet with myself that it would be a few days before a squirrel would beat this guard. I lost again. It took ten minutes for the little rodents to run up the post under the sheet metal tube. At least I made him squirm a little while he made it through. The next step is to add another deterrent inside the pipe. Would you like to bet with me about how long it will be before the creatures learn they can make a super-squirrel leap up to the cafe?

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Grey November Days = Writer’s Block

Posted on 18/11/2022 by Grumpa Joe

There is no doubt that the short grey days of November are having an effect on my attitude. My usual positive self has decayed into sullenness. It happens every year. I have self diagnosed my self as having light affective disorder (LAD).

This morning I awoke at 7:30 and stayed in bed for another thirty minutes all the time thinking I should get up and get started, and I missed my usual reminder to make this the greatest day of my life. Eventually, I’ll go out for a walk and the chilly air will cause me to snap out of the doldrums.

This Fall we’ve had some really strange weather, for instance, last week the temperature was in the sixties and the sun shone. Typically, we get the least amount of sunshine in November and December, and that is exactly what we have right now, dark, cold, and windy.

Usually, we receive our first snow on Thanksgiving day, but this year it started snowing a full week ahead of schedule. So much for global warming.

Another sad event came when ex-president Trump announced that he will run for president again. Why he wants to put himself, and us, through the agony of watching the press crucify him daily for the entire four years is a mystery. If he wins and survives his term he will go into the history books as the greatest president ever.

Yesterday, I wound up calling a plumber to install a new sump pump into our basement water drainage pit. I have a back up system which has been alarming, and doing the job of preventing my House in a House from flooding. The young plumber did the job in a record thirty-five minutes. It would have taken me about two days to do the job. The difference is that he didn’t try to save any of the old piping. He merely cut out the old pump, pipe and all, and replaced everything. I challenged him to prove to me that the pump was not made in China, and he did so by showing me the place of manufacture as being in Lincolnshire, Illinois. That made my day. Not only was it not made in China it was made in my home state in a Chicago suburb. I asked him what the guarantee was, and he told me it was three years. He got that by looking at his company’s website on his smart phone. I showed him the carton the pump came in where it stated that the warranty is four years if the pump is bought and installed by a contractor. The pump that died was installed in 2012, so there is a good chance I will never have to replace this particular pump again, but there are two more sump pumps in the house. One of them is 14 years old. I’ll be seeing him again, probably very soon. Hopefully it will be on a sunny day.

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