Anti-Squirrel Strategy #4,381

The squirrel-proof seed feeder is suspended on a wire between two trees quite a distance apart, but squirrels have learned to leap from one tree or the other onto the feeder's roof so that seed mix flies from the "squirrel-proof" feeder, hits the ground, and is eaten not by birds but by horrid little rodents. I have tried many ways to combat this. "Grease the top." "Put mousetrap sticky-paper on top." "Put baffles." (Baffles made of wire, paper, etc. were all ineffective; I've been at this now for 17 years. They don't crawl over the wire. They fly from the tree directly to the feeder.) "Put a nice deep tub (like a trash can) full of water underneath." "Shoot them." (I wish!). Today while picking up branches broken by the storm, I had this camouflage-type idea. I am hoping that it seems to the squirrels impossible to gauge a perfect landing on the feeder's roof. And that if they try, a whole bunch of sticks will rain down on them.

It's been working for the past 45 minutes! But you know what? If they don't get the seed they eat the suet. If there's no suet they drop onto my roof and, hanging upside down, suck nectar from the dangling hummingbird feeders. Eight ounces of nectar doesn't last the day.

A Neat Trick

Happy Halloween, when people dress in costume except when, like me, they are too much of a character already. This very fine Walking Stick I met on the door frame had its legs stockinged green to match the paint. How that happens I don't know, but it's marvelous and someday we humans will be able to do that.

Days have been wonderfully, exceptionally warm for October, and I deeply appreciate the warm weather extending until now, and perhaps until December. I've barbecued on December 6, and last December 21, the solstice, maxed out at 66 degrees (above zero), warm enough to sit by the Yule Log until long past sunset.

After we are into November, the solstice is only seven weeks away.

Here's to Our Autumn Equinox

September 23 at 8:20 a.m. UTC or 3:20 a.m. here, the 2015 autumnal equinox, when daylight and darkness are almost precisely equal. Now, I will determinedly list the good things about the autumnal equinox:

• Fall colors
• Fall mushrooms
• No bugs
• Clear starry skies with the Milky Way at the zenith
• Baking season begins
• Harvest
• Hunting season
• Time to tour wineries
• Time to prep the fireplace/fire bowl
• Walnuts and hickory nuts
• Caramel apples
• Low humidity

These pink camo wineglasses were a gift from a friend who knows my taste in stemware.

Let's Talk Pink Camouflage

Walmart.com

It used to be that you needed only to wear blue denim to be perfectly in step with Jefferson County high fashion. If you didn't wear blue denim, you carried a blue denim handbag. You had to have blue denim on you somewhere, and the senior women pushed that envelope by accessorizing with Indian turquoise jewelry. Then the sleeveless, zip-front vest became a must-have. I own several, much to the dismay of a city friend who could not help but remark on the coral-colored fleece vest I wore to lunch, although out of concern for city feelings I had left my shooting vest and my hunter-orange one at home. Then everyone who was anyone here bought pit bulls, and people middle-class and above bought bulldogs, which sound kind of the same.

These days you'd better wear UnderArmour. This brand of well-made, hard-wearing technical athletic clothing, $50 for a long-sleeved tee-shirt, sells like hotcakes, especially to the poor, who can now buy it from the farm & home stores that once sold only Dickies and Carhartt pants and John Deere logo wear. Even upper-middle-class Jefferson Countians wear UnderArmour caps. The local youth too cool for Under Armour clothing wear UnderArmour cross-training gym shoes.

Even so, don't come out here this autumn expecting acceptance into the highest circles unless you are wearing UnderArmour camouflage gear, specifically the pattern "Real Tree." Real Tree is carried even by Walmart, and, for the ladies, there's a line of pink "Real Tree" camouflage everything, lounge pants to aprons (see photo) to dinnerware.

Pink camouflage clothing bothers some people. Let me explain: It's the gingham of our time. The pink indicates acceptance of the wearer's femininity ("I am not a feminist") and the camouflage, tacit support for hunting and the U.S.military, and by extension, approval of a gun-toting lifestyle, and by further extension, a passion for the Second Amendment, which in turn conveys distaste for all things Obama. Pink camouflage indicates not only a "stand by your man" philosophy but a rightist form of patriotism. My own pink camouflage item is a ballcap emblazoned with "USA" in case its message isn't clear enough; I wear it hoping to be taken for a native. I like President Obama, but no one can tell. That's my camouflage.

The Blind

Took a new path through the conservation area today -- a really new path, because I know the place well and that path was never there before or I'd have walked it -- and found a secret pond, connected to another larger secret pond. I am charmed by seeing a sudden shine of water between trees and discovering a water feature not on any maps. Here the path seemed to end. While searching the leafy floor of the woods for any further path, I raised my eyes and suddenly saw this blind which I hadn't noticed before. Gee, I wouldn't make a very good deer or rabbit!

A choice hunting spot this was, on a slope above the smaller of the two ponds, in a quiet area far from the road. Its design, placement, and camouflage of genuine oak branches were all the result of much thought by the wily hunters. Some yards away in the classic Missouri oak and hickory forest I also saw a tree stand. It's the season. And now I know how the new path got made.