West Chester Nature, Apr. 3, 2013

I have one more posting covering the Dead Sea Scroll on display here at the Cincinnati Museum Center but first I want to share some other material. If you follow my postings you soon learn I love nature and all of the beauty God created for us to manage, appreciate and love. I have a lot to watch and laugh at in my back yard and in the plant room. I will share a few photos and comments so lets get started.

I have nine bird feeders in the back yard and one specifically for the squirrels all 8 of them but they always want to eat from other feeder that are for the birds so I am always on the look for feeders that are suppose to be squirrel proof like the one above. You can see it is anything but squirrel proof.

You see if you just keep studying the problem eventually you can sole it as this squirrel did. Not only did he get inside the feeder he eventually removes the bird perch's so the feed would spill out. Squirrel proof. HA.

Back to the store for a refund.

While cleaning out drawers and cabinets Joyce found a pecan tree that Jan made years ago. She glued pecans to a cone shape and then finished it with a high gloss spray. I threw it out under one of the feeders where it remained untouched for a day then Mr. squirrel decided to take a look and he liked what he saw. He worked all day 10 or so hours removing the pecans. There were at least a hundred pecans stuck to the form. He would remove the glue and pieces of the cone stuck to the pecan then went off and buried it in the yard and flower beds. You can see pieces of the cone lying around where he cleaned up his prize. Interesting as competitive as the squirrels are none of the others bothered him or his find perhaps they will later dig the pecans up after he did all the work.

Above I referred to the squirrel as Mr. but in this photo I think he is a pregnant Mrs. 

This is not the squirrel inside the feeder above.

Giant Elephant Ear now has three blossoms

Hugh elephant ear leaf. When it learn over to far the stem can't hold it up so it causes the stem to

 fold and it will eventually die because it can't get water past the fold point. 

This leaf is a good 3 feet long.

I go by fairly regularly to check on the wild turkeys and the last time I went by there were at least 7 in the field. Several of the males had their tail feathers all spread out strutting their stuff. I suppose they were trying to impress the female. It seemed to me they were ignoring the males.

I did buy a new and different squirrel proof bird feeder but so far nothing has even looked at it. When I put something new out it seems they have to get use to the new thing before they ( birds or squirrels ) will approach it. I will let you  know. I hope all the squirrels will be able to do is just climb all over it and that they are permitted to do.

Must close now. Post #2 on the Dead Sea scrolls is coming next. Remember God loves you and so do I.

Grandpa Bill