Mom's Thoughts on Paradise

We live in the “boonies” - the woods come right up to the house with only as small cleared front yard. As a consequence, most of animals native to east TN can be seen on our property. But, one thing I did not realize when we moved in, was how much of that wildlife wanted to live in or on the outside of our home.

Our welcoming visitor was a squirrel who’d climbed down the chimney, ate up quite a bit of carpeting, and chewed a number of crossbars from the windows. So, we added a chimney cap, hid the chewed up carpeting behind furniture and did without the window decorative crossbars.

Later that first summer, we learned about carpenter bees. These bees can “drill” very nice holes in wood. So now, we patrol the exterior of the house, looking for telltale piles of sawdust so we know where to eliminate the pests.

Through the years, we’ve also dealt with a momma possum and babies in the basement, a momma raccoon and babies in the shed, a snake in the bathroom, a bat in the kitchen (at Halloween no less!) , and flying squirrels.

Oh, we also have occasional mice too. I’ve spoken to the cat many times, trying to explain that it is her job to keep the house zone free of mice, but she refuses to focus on the house, and seems to prefer “woods mice.”

The flying squirrels have been a problem several times. We’ve had them get into the living room and swoop by me. We also had them get into the attic, run around all night, and store nuts – we’d here the nuts rolling down the attic.

The reason that I mention our wildlife now is that I have a birdfeeder off the deck. The type I use is a tipping feeder, so if a squirrel gets on the tray to eat, a door tips shut, and the squirrel can’t eat. The birds are too light, and the door doesn’t tip shut. So, the squirrels aren’t much of a problem anymore.

In the past, I also had problems with raccoons getting into the feeder which was hung from a Crossbar from a chain. The raccoon would sit on the crossbar, reach down, and grab the seed. So, I used a longer chain. Next, they discovered that they could use the chain to shake out the seed. So, we changed the change to a pole, and hung the feeder from the pole. Now they couldn’t shake out the seed. Eventually, they did manage to knock the feeder of the pole, and dented it so badly I had to replace it. So, I added a piece of plastic to cover the hook on the pole so the feeder couldn’t be shaken off. This has worked for many years. Till now……

My current battle is with a mother raccoon (and probably the babies in a few weeks). She’s taken the simple approach of climbing down the pole, sitting on the top of the feeder, and eating all the seed she desires. I’ll have to come up with a new solution as she’s emptied the feeder in 2 nights.