Pam – Page 113 – New England's Narrow Road

Feeding Wildlife: Squirrels Getting Fat on Bird Seed

When I first put out bird feeders this year at my new place, none of the birds seemed interested. For days no creature even came near any of the seed and I put out good stuff! I buy “Chickadee’s Choice” which has sunflower seeds and nuts of all kinds, and that is usually gobbled up by many types of birds as well as squirrels, but there were no takers.

I also had one packet of suet (store bought, not my homemade stuff) and nobody seemed to want it either. Now, I love feeding the birds and have done so since I moved up north in 2005, but I’ve never seen birds ignore my offerings!

Just when I was planning on saving a bunch of money this winter because I would not have to buy seed, they began to notice and started eating. The squirrels came first, little piggies that they are. I haven’t seen a red squirrel, but there are plenty of fat (and getting fatter) gray ones.

I was also excited to hear, and see a pair of cardinals right outside the front window – and they have returned almost every day. For the 3 years I lived in my rental house, before moving here, I saw a cardinal only one time and I always thought that was strange. Now I will try to entice them to stay around, if I can convince the squirrels to share.

Birds, Squirrels and the Unanticipated Political Squall (backslashbacklash.com)

Photo Carousel of Makeover Progress

I’ve just discovered this photo carousel link that WordPress offers, and it’s pretty cool. This one includes pictures of my home renovations: new garage doors, new windows and siding.

Old garage doors — The old garage doors and old siding

New garage doors and siding — New garage doors and new siding done!

Old rotted wood on the outside of the house

scaffolding — Scaffolding for siding the garage area

New siding, windows and shutters complete

WordPress Adds Photo Carousels, Goes Even More Social (readwriteweb.com)

Before and After, New Siding, Home Makeover

My new yellow house fixer-upper — My new house, as it looked before I moved in.

I haven’t been good at keeping photos coming of my new home makeover, but here is the final picture (below) and you can see the changes that have been made to the foreclosure I bought this past summer.

The old, dark yellow clapboard was rotted and gross – as you can see in the photo above that was taken in May this year. Since I couldn’t afford to have the entire back of the house sided just yet, I opted to keep the yellow color but chose a lighter shade for the new siding. The left side wall had never been painted to match the rest of the house, so now it does match.

Instead of adding green shutters (the old ones were crumbling), I chose neutral white, which may look a bit dull in comparison, but will, in the end, look nice once I have the gardens planted along the front. I’m trying to look at the big picture and I know it will take years to accomplish, but for now I know that my house won’t rot away beneath me.

As you can see, our 2 feet of snow has pretty much melted away! Yay…

The new siding job – removing the old from the front and both sides – and replacing the front door and 4 windows in the front, took 2 weeks. The guys lost one day to power outages and the freak snow storm, but they were here rain or shine otherwise and I am completely happy with their work. I would recommend “Branchas Siding” (now called ProVision Exteriors), to anyone.

after house renovations completed — The “after” photo of my home renovations.

My House Make-Over: Off With The Old Clapboards (newenglandsnarrowroad.wordpress.com)
My First Look at The New Siding! (newenglandsnarrowroad.wordpress.com)

Skimpy Halloween Decorations, But I’ve Got Candy!

Halloween candle holders in the window — Skimpy Halloween Decor

Even before the two feet of snow fell, my Halloween decorations had been partially removed. This was because of the renovations on the outside of my house. Now that the windows have been installed there is a nice little ledge for my three Halloween candle holders to sit upon. Besides the buried pumpkin and partially snow-covered ghost out at the end of the driveway, and a plug-in Jack O’Lantern inside the mud room, that is all I have up for decorations.

I was excited to do Halloween this year because I live in an actual neighborhood and figured that kids would be coming to collect some goodies. My own son will be visiting with friends in our old neighborhood and he is a bit too old to trick or treat, so I decided I would drop him off and then go home and watch for kids to come and get their candy.

Now there is snow which brings ice from the warming and melting during the day, and tonight on Halloween I’m afraid my driveway will be challenging so I’ll have to put out some sand. But my front lights are not up yet so there won’t be any lights to put on except for my big pumpkin sitting in the window of the mudroom. I honestly don’t know what to expect. I’ve asked a couple of the neighbor kids (who came to help me shovel yesterday) and they said there really aren’t that many kids around.

Our town has power, so the plans have not changed, like so many have had to do to the south of us. So tonight will be a new adventure in the new neighborhood and I’ll see what Halloween is like around here. I hope the kids come by, because I’ve got some treats for them!