Feeding the Birds

Did I mention that I don’t have to work on Mondays and Fridays any more? Since cutting back to just three days per week, my quality of life has significantly improved — and I should mention here that the accompanying pay cut was made possible by all those Trim the Fat Tuesday lifestyle changes we put in place back in 2014. 

Anyway, I now have time to attend to dozens of little projects around the house and garden, one of which I took care of yesterday, before today’s (very small) snowfall:

For Christmas the kids got some very cute bird feeders in fun shapes (owls, trees, snowmen) along with a birdwatching guide. This is something we’ve always wished we had, so we would know what’s eating our berries and peas.

We’ve never put out a bird feeder before, since during the summer we are usually trying to keep predators out of the garden. It also seems a little mean to attract unsuspecting birdies to a killer cat’s home turf, but since we are bereft of a barn cat this winter, it’s the perfect time to see what birds come by for a snack. 

We decided to hang the feeders close to the windows where we could get a good look at the birds, so I strapped a spare bamboo stake to the new rose trellises in the perennial border:

The bird feeders are pretty lightweight, so the cantilevered poles should be fine. They’re also really cute:

So far we haven’t seen any birds getting revenge against these owl effigies, but the bird feeders themselves have freaked us out when we notice them staring in the window out the corners of our eyes.