Hello everyone; yes, believe it or not, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you today’s garden news. You may remember me from such posts as “The First Snow” and “A Day At The Opera”, among so many others.
Here I am looking quite formal and serious. I think this is the way I’m supposed to look when my picture is taken. I did learn that there was a cat in the garden yesterday, but the guy I live with didn’t tell me until today.
As you may know, there has been an ongoing battle with rodents in the garden here. The bird feeding season began in earnest just a couple of weeks ago (though there is always something hanging in a feeder somewhere here), and the guy I live with said just yesterday that it had become rodent feeding season instead. He would rather feed birds.
He said it was one thing to have rodents running all over the yard, and quite another to be feeding them. So he bought an extra fancy squirrel baffle today.
So far (like in the last few hours), it’s worked pretty well.
The guy I live with hits his head on this feeder every single day. And yet, he knows it’s there, because he put it there.
He also bought a cage for one of the feeders. The feeder has to have a place to screw into the bottom part of the cage, otherwise, as he discovered when he tried to make his own feeder cage, the squirrel just hangs on one side of the cage, and, gravity being what it is, the feeder tube just falls against it, and so the squirrel can shovel out the seed.
Here it is. I should say that it’s not hanging quite straight, even though it looks that way in the picture. 
Pretty nifty, huh?
Okay, so, picture this. The feeder, and its sturdy, heavy cage, are hanging from the Russian hawthorn, basically right in the middle of the path. How long do you think it will be before the guy I live with bangs his head on it?
That’s all there is for today. I just wanted to show you the new fortifications in the daily war with the rodents.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Hi Chess that feeder is looking great, there was a nasty cat in the garden behind the big black fence the other day and the dog I live with suddenly spied it and chased it away, he doesn’t like cats in his, our backyard and neither do I.
Cats are indeed icky. The guy I live with, though, said this one was black and white, so maybe it might not have been so bad. It was trying to get at the birds, which is wrong, and should have been indoors.
All the news coverage is devoted to football concussions when there is a much larger story right in everyone’s back yard! I, too, keep walking into the hanging feeder at Longears. This fall I attached some strings of felt leaves to the bottom of the feeder an I no longer hit my head, which is a good thing because I cannot afford to lose any more brain cells if I hope to keep the rabbits from eating my prized plants.
Funny you should mention that. The guy I live with ran into the feeder with the new baffle five times today. I counted. It was pretty funny.
My mommy used to make fun of the number of times the guy I live with hit his head on something….anything, really…but he said it was because gardeners are always looking down, and not scanning the immediate area for danger. I guess that makes sense.
Cats may be somewhat icky and deserving of a good chase or barking-at, but considering the rodent population, an occasional feline visitor might be just the thing. Added bonus: he comes dressed in a tux!
We saw the black-and-white kitty today. Wandering around the neighborhood is not a good thing to do, if you’re a cat. We won’t go into why.
Absolutely right. Wandering is not just not a good thing, it can be downright dangerous. My cats are indoors and the oldest will be 20 soon. Although suburban, we have coyotes here.
Very dangerous where coyotes live, too.
The cats who lived here never did anything. Never caught mice. Just laid around doing nothing. Like us, now.
Good your guy is beginning to outwit the rodents in your garden and provide you with some humour whillst also the added bonus of practicising your mathematics. I saw a giant rodent (possum ) in the middle of the day and chased it up a tree, they usually only come out at night, I got quite a surprise. And I am very happy because yesterday my cousins, the two cats, came home after 9 weeks away and one is visiting with me right now, I do love him.
There were cats here in the beginning. My grandpa Flurry told me stories about them. He called them his cat tales.