It has been awhile since I’ve embarked on an operation around here. Most of my time has been spent training for some upcoming runs and dealing with the daily upkeep around the lot. Unfortunately, the catalyst for this effort is based in some sadness. We had to say goodbye to an old friend this month. While scouting out our lot to set the placement for the house, we became attached a tall sturdy oak in the middle of the woods. In fact, we liked it so much we actually positioned our house around it so we could enjoy it from our windows every day. There was a lot of construction near it which might have caused it some undue trauma or possibly succumbed to some tree pests invading the area. In either case, the tree didn’t make it through the Spring and we had to put it down.
Not only did we lose an excellent source of shade, but I also lost my bird theater since our feeders were hung off its branches. I literally have thousands of bird pictures as a result of that tree and it was heart tugging to watch it be ravaged by the chainsaws. Once down my immediate concern went to how to keep from losing all the birds that had adopted my feeders. In desperation I rigged a temporary solution off of the deck railing. This sounded like a plan until I came home and saw this one day.
That would be a mother raccoon hanging onto the bird feeder in order to drop seed down to her 3 (actually 4) babies. Unbelievable how intelligent these creatures are. From that point on, those babies came back all day long to feast on whatever the birds dropped into the grass or porch. Of course, this included a passion for digging holes in search of any seeds that may have slipped into a crack. This is unacceptable and since I will not harm a young animal or an adult with its young I was forced to initiate Operation Pesky Varmint Control…for simplicity, lets call it Operation PVC. This was going to take something that can withstand the elements, be easy to work with and be a hindrance to bandits with thumbs. A trip to Lowes was in order and I knew just the aisle to start in. After about 6 hours across multiple trips to Lowes I had gathered the following.
If you are curious how all these fit together, hit the jump to see the rest of the post.
