The Owl was here again

I took the pup out early this morning, it was still dark, so for my safety I had to put on the back light, and because she doesn't like the dark. I also took a flash light so I didn't get any surprises from the neighborhood dogs. The light is pointed towards the back of the property, after I hooked up the dog I saw a branch move so I wanted to see what it was. Then something flew over to where the feeders were. I followed and shined the flash light in the trees til I saw it sitting there. It's so little couldn't of been more than 6 inches if it was that. It was so cute, so I guess our chance sighting before isn't going to be our last. I thought the flashes from the camera before might of scared it away, and I don't want to take that chance, it'll have to be one of our habitants that will not be photographed again.
I wish the other picture came out better. I wonder what owl it is

The hummingbirds found us

We finally hung the hummingbird feeder up this afternoon, about 3 and its almost 7:30 and I just saw one at the feeder. I was thinking that it would take a lot longer before they found it.
Now I wonder what the squirrels are going to do in the morning when they see something hanging there. I certainly hope they don't knock it down and break it, its going to be another week before I get to the store to replace it.

Free plants

I already told you about this link,http://freeplants.com/ check it out. I signed up for the newletter and get interesting tidbits to help in the garden. His latest was about this additive that will improve many aspects of your garden and not be harmful to humans or animals. Once we really get settled in to this place I will plan on growing and selling plants. But thats down the road, in the mean time I'm working on getting the front and backyard in order, the shape its in now won't exactly encourage anyone to buy from me. Here I am trying to sell plants and my front yard isn't even the slightest bit attractive, not even to me. But heck I just moved in here and there is lots to get done before doing the front yard. We've been working on the backyard because that is where the kids spend most of their day. This place is on a downslope and everytime it rains it uncovers something else, the last rain we found a knife in the tree cluster next to their playground. Not good.
Really you should check out the link, he has all kinds of interesting things on his site, free stuff too, now who doesn't like free, especially when it comes to setting up your garden.

Woodpecker nest hit the ground

We had a couple days of wind, some of the gusts were so bad that it blew over our screened in canopy. It got worse that night, when going out the feed the birds I found a huge hunk of the woodpecker tree laying on the ground. Yesterday we were cleaning up the area around the woodpecker tree and found a nest and one broken egg. We looked around for another egg but had no luck, the nest was hanging on one of the branches but it was empty. We figure something got the others or it only had one.
I can hear the pileated woodpecker out there now, its knock is much louder than the downy woodpeckers.
Didn't get to make the pinecone birdfeeders, we went out to the woods and checked under all the pine trees and there were none. I should of gone to the park and gotten some but I wanted the kids to be apart of it. So will have to leave that for another day.

These pesky squirrels won't give up

I moved the hanging bird feeder, put it on a shepard hook, darn if they didn't get to it this morning. So I went out there and put some oil on the hook, I'll tell you that if I had some black grease I would of put it on there. It was funny watching the squirrel this afternoon, he acted like he wanted to jump from one of the branches he sat there looking at the feeder for the longest time, finally he went to the ground. But he was looking all over the place, he knew the kitten was lurking around somewhere and with every couple steps he would sit up and look around. Finally made it to the shepard hook, but didn't get up very far he kept sliding down. So its a temporary solution.

Ceyenne pepper didn't work

Well the ceyenne pepper didn't discourage the squirrels from hitting the feeders. So I give up, I'm turning the one feeder into a planter, there is no place to move it to that isn't in full sun or in the other family space. It would be a target for balls and bicycles, or the daily activities of the grandkids.
I'm going to try and put a better obstical on the hanging feeder, the one there isn't really working once the wind moves it.
When the grandkids get home from their weekend at grandmothers we will make some pincone feeders, I'll be hanging them along the house the squirrels can't get to them there. They have won one battle but I'm not done.