Random 5 for June 17 – Ancestry research, emails, mice, chipmunks, hummingbirds

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Addictions – I haven’t been working on my ancestry project for the last two months. I have already gone back as far as I can on my direct ancestors but there are aunts and uncles and in-laws to research. This week I had an hour to kill so I thought I’d see what’s new there. Yikes! I got sucked right back in and was almost late for my dinner. I find the research soothing (I don’t know if that’s the simplicity of it or finding answers) but it gives me strange dreams. I have a cousin that I’m interested in researching. Her father who is not a blood relation and looks like he may have an interesting ancestry. I’ll wait until I have an appropriate time frame…or not!

Jeeps, Dodges, what next? – More stupid stuff from the internet. I get emails from my car dealer – sales, maintenance reminders, etc. Now I’ve started to get them from Jeep and Dodge dealers. I don’t have either and the emails are addressed to Steve. Not a Steve here either. Whatupwitdat?

Homewrecker – We are finishing up the last of the spring cleanup here. The north side of the house gets a green mildew that we wash off yearly. My large birdseed container is also located there. Last week I notice that inside the container (not in the birdseed but outside the birdseed can inside the housing) has some “nesting” stuff accumulated in a corner. I’m thinking mice. Yep, on a trip to fill feeders, I saw two little ones scurrying around. I didn’t have the heart to disrupt their nest. I know they are destructive in a house but they have a “hard knock life.” Unfortunately, the beloved husband cleaned it all out when I was on an errand. I’m sure they found somewhere to sleep.

Come out and play with me!

Those rascally chipmunks! – While I am sympathetic to mice, we have a chipmunk population that has exploded since my old cat Jake has passed. They have condos built under our porch, patio, around the pond, etc. One day our whole property will drop down into a pit that was excavated by chipmunks. The beloved husband repaired a hole in the patio that went down at least 4” deep. He put in sand. The next morning it was dug out. He did it again being more thorough. The next morning it was dug out again. “Me thinks” there is a full-scale war going on.

Courtesy of lazer29 from birds and blooms

On the other hand – Much as I love and nurture wildlife here I have not been successful with hummingbirds. I put out the feeder a few weeks back and haven’t seen any. I’ve also planted a few things they like. Still no takers. We must be on the “no fly” zone or our restaurant was downgraded. Without an outdoor cat to challenge any avian friends, I’m not sure what’s going on.

So how was your week?

 

 

61 thoughts on “Random 5 for June 17 – Ancestry research, emails, mice, chipmunks, hummingbirds”

  1. You’re awfully kind hearted to not even want to disrupt a rodent bed! I don’t think I want to be the one to “rid” the area, but I’d sure have someone else do it. LOL! We have hummingbirds, as I’ve mentioned recently, but I don’t think we’ve had as many as other years. I wonder a lot about migrating patterns and how they’ve been affected. It can be a little mysterious!

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  2. Your trials and tribulations with the chipmunks made me smile. My sister has an intense dislike for the lovable little critters ever since they broke into her home and moved it. Evicting them has not been easy.
    Our challenge is currently with a skunk that has moved into a hole he’s dug under our pool deck. I’m going through the same ritual of filling it in, only to have it re-dug the next morning. Grrr.

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  3. I was going to suggest you start to feed a feral cat to manage your chipmunk area, but that is a whole can of worms. You will feel obligated to neuter it and get it shots and then it will get cold and you will worry.
    Don’t do it. I follow a man on tumblr who did it and now has 4 cats inside and 2 outside. All from the original feral cat he felt sorry for. Being naive he didn’t realize it would be best to neuter immediately, so there were soon kittens… He brought 4 kittens inside, one mom and kitten who refused to domesticate outside. The costs escalate quickly.

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  4. I’ll trade you some geckos for your chipmunks! I’ve been looking at cars again lately, but have been too timid to give them my name or email. But eventually I know I’ll have to, so we’ll see what happens and how much I’ll get bombarded with marketing messages.

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  5. We have very few chipmunks, so we can afford to enjoy watching them. I’m sorry the hummingbirds have not responded to your welcome. We have them on two sides of the house and know they feed with the neighbors, too.

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  6. How did I miss this post? I mean chipmunks in the title and all. CH relocated 18 chipmunks before we left… I am sure there are 1800 more but there are two dogs now to keep them running for another home. I could just see them finding a happy home in the wall of the family room/den and then one of them expiring and stinking up the house. They stink when they croak inside the walls. Hope the hummers find you, takes awhile sometimes and then before you know it… Boom, lots of little cute squeaking and fighting for a place at the feeder.

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    • I’ve had hummers (not a lot) in other years but nada this year. We have more trouble with mice INSIDE the house (who also smell when they expire). I don’t know how you catch that many? Humane chipmunk traps stuffed with seeds? When we had Jake he kept the population down to normal. He killed several every week. He swore that he was only routing out the old and weak.

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    • I like the Doolittles already! I am oddball out in my neighborhood. Everyone here is very pristine. They don’t like bird poop and refuse to share with groundhogs. Other than keeping the deer out of my pond, I try to get along.

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  8. Glad you are having fun with the ancestry stuff – enjoying hearing about your discoveries 🙂 My mom and SIL do our family stuff – so much interesting history to be found! Yes, the chipper and mice can be so destructive, though they are so very cute. Hope you guys can find a way to keep them from damaging the house, and definitely hope you get on the “must visit” list for the hummingbirds!

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  9. You could try what we do with squirrels in our place and that is use chilli powder (or chilli sauce seems to work as well) to deter the chipmunks. It doesn’t harm birds, so is what we use if we have particularly bad problems.

    You get weird dreams after genealogical research and I get weird dreams after the research I do into my vintage photos. As for the odd mail… a previous owner of your home, maybe?

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  10. Hi, Kate – I may have the answer to your Hummingbird mystery. I think that they have all relocated to Vancouver Island!! Although we do have a hummingbird feeder in our yard, we don’t do anything else special to attract them. Still, there have been more hummingbirds in our yard this past month than ever before. It seems like I am filling up their sugar-water container daily! Neighbours are all saying the same thing — but none of us our complaining! 🙂

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  11. About emails. I was getting them addressed to some woman about ordering stuff from Wish. I’ve never used Wish. I kept getting updates on her orders. I was a bit concerned that my identity was stolen. After making sure nothing was charged on any of my accounts, I had to write to Wish to tell them that they had a wrong email address. It took several months to stop getting emails from them. Like me, it sounds like someone typed in a wrong email address for Steve and it was yours.

    I think we have chipmunks under our deck, too. I keep finding them popping out of there. We had planned to knock down the deck this year and replace it with a concrete patio (stamped), but the doctor bills took over that allotment of money. We now have to wait until next year. 😦 The deck we have is so old it’s shredding apart. Supposedly, little critters don’t like the smell of peppermint. There are packets of it you lay around parameters and can buy at Home Depot. Don’t know if it works.

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  12. lovely, except the car emails! lol
    I have a question about bird feeder space, underneath mine the birds drop the zillion sunflower shells while other birds toss down small seed. quite a mess. do you have the same problem? what groundcover is under your feeder and how do you keep the area from sprouting wild? any suggestions is most welcome, Kate!

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  14. Last week the school in the northern community where I work kept the kids in at recess because a bear was wandering around. I’d just never even heard of something like that. So that was the most interesting thing from my week. 🙂

    I love having chippies around but they can be irritating.

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  16. Our hummingbird activity has been very disappointing so far too, Kate. Typically, by this time in the season we’ll have at least three feeders out. Right now, we only have one and it only receives a token bird here and there. Yesterday evening I did see two doing the courtship dance near the feeder. What is up? I’ve thought about emailing our bird expert who writes for the Charlotte Observer. I do know that others in the neighborhood have experienced the same. It’s so odd. I miss my hummies!

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  17. Love the line…condos built under the porch. Just saw a family of them shopping at IKEA.

    And hummingbirds…so romantic to think about.

    As far as ancestors go …mine were all drunks…sigh, but I bet they collectively made one helluva martini. 🙂

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  18. There’s a house in New Hampshire where I used to watch a chipmunk hop down an old stone wall and then disappear under the front porch step. During a remodel a few years later, they took down the drywall in the room next to the porch. 50 pounds of sunflower seeds cascaded onto the the floor!

    Mr Chips had been stealing sunflower seeds from the neighbors bird feeder for years. He had quite the cache.

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  20. Gosh, I didn’t know chipmunks were so destructive. Doesn’t sound like fun.:-(

    I like the old photograph. Did you notice there is a little girl hiding behind the woman holding the toddler? You can see the little girl’s leg, but that’s all.

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  21. Our cats are sleeping on the job inside. We have mice and I’ve caught 5 this last week in humane traps and moved them back outside. But what I want to know is: what are the cats doing all night while the mice play?? That was my week. That, and trapping feral cats.

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