Spring Cleaning, Exterior Edition

Yesterday afternoon I took advantage of the nice weather to go out and fill up most of my dozen or so bird feeders. Normally I already have them filled by this point, but I've been slacking.


This is our main feeder, it has three tubes for different kinds of seed. I usually have a generic wild bird food in one, and a black oil sunflower seed and a songbird mix in the others. The feeder is only three years old, but the Fulton winters have taken its toll, and though the rust looks nice, it's getting very hard to open the top to fill it.

This is my newest feeder, a suet feeder, that I bought last fall but never put up. It adds a nice cheery touch to the backyard.

While filling the feeders, I couldn't help but notice all of the old, brown, yucky leaves that had been hidden by the snow. Having just bought a new rake at WalMart in the morning, I decided to give it a workout. Griffin grabbed the old rake and the two of us attacked the leaves.

He takes this job very seriously.

Or maybe he just wants to play baseball with the rake.

A back-scratcher, perhaps?

Now we're just getting goofy.

Yep, goofy.

After raking up the grass, I started on some of my many, many flower beds. Removing the leaves revealed all sorts of new life; little bits of green, blinking at the bright sun.

They will join the first crocuses of the season, both purple...

...and yellow.

Now, I don't want you to think we worked too hard. We had plenty of things to keep us amused and distracted. This ladybug, for example. She wandered across a leaf...

...and a rock...

...and this stick. Isn't she cute?

And then there was this thing, this bane of my bird-watching existence, this furry-tailed rat. The squirrel.

He had come to check out the new food supply.

This is a peanut nugget feeder, one which usually gives the squirrels fits because they have to balance enough to use both paws to scratch out crumbs of the nuggets. They usually give up after figuring out that it's not worth the effort.

Yep, he's giving up. But wait! What's that shiny new one up there?

Hooray! A new feeder for me to plunder!
(I hate squirrels.)

Then there was this ultralight (I think that's what they're called) buzzing around our neighborhood.

Griffin had fun waving to it. Whoever was flying it was probably laughing at the fools down there wasting such gorgeous weather doing yardwork.