Out of the Night, When the Full Moon is Bright

After setting up feeders and waiting for days for the birds to discover a new place to dine, we finally had success. The Hummingbird feeder was humming, the Finch feeder was serving 5 star Nyger Thistle seed, and the regular feeders were drawing a varied list of clientele, from Bluejays to Indigo Buntings to Tufted Titmice... (or is it Titmouses?????)  Sitting at the table in the sunroom every morning was a joy as we watched our avian friends chow down. Then tragedy struck.
One morning I discovered the Hummingbird feeder lying on the ground. Thinking it may have blown down, I hung it back in the tree, but wired it to prevent a repeat of the previous night's calamity. The next morning the feeder was twisted upside down, still wired to the tree but empty. Not ones to be deterred, we moved the feeder to a crook and put a baffle on the pole. Again the next morning the feeder was drained dry. We decided to set up a game camera to see exactly what was draining our feeder.
Having a bit of fun, since I needed to get the cam set, I told Jill we had caught the perp.

  

Needless to say, she had more fun posting this on her Facebook page. 

That night we did catch the perp, as the first photo at the top of the page shows. Now, to devise a plan to foil his nightly raids. We suspended the feeder on a 10 foot wire from a branch high in the tree where we previously had hung the feeder. It was about 6 feet off the ground and 5 feet out from the trunk. Far enough to discourage any jumpers. It worked. This morning when I came out the feeder was full, and the "Hummy Cam" took no photos. But.....

Lying about 20 feet into the woods was one of our regular seed feeders. Pulled down from its crook stand and discarded like a schoolboy's lunch pail on the playground. 

Obviously we were the victims of Raccoon Revenge. So tonight, I will point the 'Hummy Cam" in a different direction to catch the villain that comes like a thief in the night. Not that I can do much about it, but more for the thrill of the chase........ and I am okay with that.

I'll See You in the Forest

I’ll see you in the forest
And I’ll meet you in the forest
Come to the forest with me
Where things are always happening
There’s plenty of things to see
So don’t go far away
Come back, come back every day
Back into the forest with me

If you are of a certain age, then you should have immediately recognized the lyrics above. If you are slightly younger, you probably said to yourself, "Eeeewwwwww, these are just a bit creepy."
They are the lyrics to the theme song of, a children's show from the 60s, "Pixanne." Broadcast weekday mornings on channel 10, WCAU here in the Philadelphia are, it was not a mainstay at our house when I wa growing up. We were a WFIL, Wee Willie Webber household, on Channel 6.
Nevertheless, this song comes to mind every morning as I sit down with my breakfast, of a cup of coffee and a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.

The above view is my PBJ panorama and is filled with a cast of characters that Pixanne could never match. There are usually no less than 4 squirrels plundering and pillaging the bird feeder. A half dozen Goldfinches work out their rotations on the finch feeder. A Ruby Throated Hummingbird flits around his bottle of nectar. These regulars are joined by Black Capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?????), a pair of Northern Cardinals, Sparrows, a raucous Blue Jay, Downey Woodpeckers, and an elusive Pileated Woodpecker. 

A few weeks ago we put out our feeders and were disappointed for several days when they remained untouched. Then the squirrels discovered a never ending food source. Climbing poles, leaping from trees, and providing us with plenty of laughs at their antics.  Finally the birds started to discover the feeders and began to come in. The Titmice were first, followed by the Sparrows, then the rest of the cast assembled.  With camera at the ready we can usually get some pictures of all of our breakfast buddies.

  All except for the Pileated. His laughing call followed by his drumming on a convenient dead tree announces his arrival. I grab the camera and try to get a picture of him. He usually chooses the back side of trees and occasionally pokes his head around the trunk just long enough for me to see him but not photograph him. I think he mocks me. 

Our latest mystery is finding out what is draining our hummingbird feeder overnight. Every morning we come out and it is empty. A couple of times it was on the ground. Another time it was twisted up into the tree it was hanging from. Yesterday we put it on a pole with a squirrel baffle on it, but once again, it was empty this morning.  I've ordered a game camera that I will set up and try and get some pictures of the perpetrator. Stay tuned.... film at 11. 

In the meantime, I'll watch the crazy squirrels plunder and pillage, the Blue Jay try to take over, the Goldfinches systematically take turns, and I will continue to stalk the elusive Woody the Woodpecker. It's a great way to spend the morning.... and I am more than okay with that.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

Retiring to Lewes has opened up a slew of opportunities that we didn't have when we lived in The Mushroom Capital of the World. One of them is the ability to ride a bike  for miles and not encounter a hill. Those of you that follow me on Facebook will see my almost daily Endomondo posts of our bike rides. 3 miles is our minimum distance that we have to ride. We call it "Doing Bay Avenue."

Starting at the beach house we ride Cedar Street to its end at Roosevelt Inlet. Then turning around we ride back Bay Avenue, since it is one way going east. 3 miles. 210 calories. Boom.

When going on a longer ride we almost always "do Bay Avenue" first, then head off to where ever we are headed for the day. Today for example, after Bay Ave. We headed up and over the Drawbridge, down Pilottown Road to where it ends at Roosevelt Inlet. Pilottown parallels Cedar on the other side of the canal. From there we go out through the new park, past the wind turbine on UD's campus, then we head into town.

Since today's loop was about 9 miles and we were in town, we decided to Reward ourselves with a late lunch and a margarita at Agave, which is one of the many restaurants in Lewes. Agave at dinnertime is usually packed out with an hour and a half to two hour wait. Going in for a late lunch or very early dinner around 2 or 3 will usually get you a table without any wait. That was our fortune today.
We were seated right away. We both ordered one of their signature Margaritas and then got serious about lunch. The Wise and Wonderful Jillo ordered Chicken Enchiladas and I had Fish Tacos.  Both were excellent and we had great service.  After lunch we had a mile to go to get back to the beach house. Throwing our bikes on the rack we headed for home.

On Gordon's Pond Trail

On other days we will do the 18 mile Lewes to Rehoboth Loop utilizing both the Gordon's Pond Trail and the Junction and Breakwater Trail. This is another great ride that is nice and flat. The nearly 20 miles takes very little toll on our old retired bodies. The Jill and Bill Biking Rewards Plan allows for lunch at The Greene Turtle whenever we make the trek into Rehoboth.

The Junction Breakwater Trail

I am tempted to ride from home to the beach house a distance of only 8 miles. The problem with this ride is we have a couple of miles of back roads with no shoulders, a gazillion construction sites, and crossing Route 1 to get to the beach side. Maybe someday. But for now, it's easy to throw the bikes on the car and drive over there.... and probably safer too.... and I am okay with that.

The Boardwalk in Rehoboth

Today's lunch at Agave. Fish Tacos and Chicken Enchiladas

Whose Woods These Are?

In the 8 months that have passed since I last posted (the highway to hell is now several lanes wide) our lives have changed dramatically. Jessie and Garrett decided to put the Benjamonkey into daycare for the 2014-2015 school year. While we would surely miss him it was really a good move for many reasons. One of them being it allowed us to stay at the beach for the fall. The school year started and we changed our location to Lewes. We choose to stay in the little back house and decided to have new flooring put into the dining room and bedroom. We also decided to paint the walls, since they were paneled  back in the 70s and untouched since then.

The first of our many trips to Lowe's found us sorting through hundreds of paint chips, while Jill agonized over the correct shade of yellow or blue that would go into each room. Let me say here, that I hate to paint. Always have. Always will. So I am not an agonizer. I can be happy with white walls.
Needless to say we found the right colors, plunged into the task and realized that 40 year old paneling is as thirsty as a man lost in the desert. The second lesson we learned was to use a good primer.

As September and October passed, we painted and floored and fished our way through the fall. Then, as we approached November we realized that we really didn't want to go home. So we contacted a realtor and began our search for a house close to the beach that could become our retirement home. Since we share the beach house with my sisters moving there was not a possibility. We found that the further you were from the beach the less expensive the houses were. We also learned that if you were east of Route 1, the main highway here in Lower Slower Delaware, houses were $200,000 more expensive than for a comparable house west of the highway. We settled on west of the highway.

Thanksgiving weekend found us traveling to Lewes, meeting with a realtor and looking at 10 houses on that Friday. The list was narrowed to two houses, that coincidentally had the same floor plan. One had a sunroom and a deck. The other had hardwood floors and granite counters in the kitchen. Decisions, decisions. We had dinner at the Rose and Crown in Lewes and mulled over our options.

Saturday morning found us going back to look at our choices in a different light. After a slight detour from the plan, (we almost built in a new construction development) we chose the house with the sunroom, deck, and 150 acres of woods behind it. And after living here for 3 months, we have no regrets.

So whose woods these are? I think I know. I looked it up on the Sussex County Tax maps, and the 150 acres are divided between two large parcels. We have seen deer, foxes, wild turkeys, squirrels, and birds. My quest is to get a picture of the Pileated Woodpecker that frequents these woods, but is quite elusive. So while we are living near the beach, it is just 7 miles away, we love our little house in the big woods. Oh yeah, and I own the first 50 feet into them .... And I am okay with that.