Bears, Birdies, and Squirrels, oh my!

I use this photo as my desktop background.  I took it in San Diego a couple years ago.  It's a nice reminder that warm sunny beaches still exist despite the condition of our local landscape...

Now that our temperatures are venturing into the 50s during the day and only barely dropping below freezing at night, we are all walking around in shorts and flip flops, pretending we live someplace warm.

Alicia rides her scooter around the driveway, banking off the ridges of ice that line its sides.  There is still a very thick blanket of white stuff covering our entire yard.  But, I find if I purposely do not look at it, I can pretend it's not there. 

Alicia has begun what she hopes will be a yearlong bird study for next year's science fair project.  Each day she logs the birds that dine at one of our birdy strip mall of assorted feeders hanging above the back deck.  There's a slingshot hanging near the back door which Stephen has used to do battle with his nemesis, the squirrel.  But, then he figured out that there was no way the bird population was going to get through the 30-lb bag of sunflower seeds before the bears arrive, so the squirrel is now welcomed to dine at his leisure.  Generally, this includes a maniacal snicker at Stephen through the window pane as he munches away, perched on top of a feeder.

As soon as the bears come out of hibernation, we'll need to take down the bird feeders to avoid attracting those unwanted dinner guests.  Stephen says the bears are rude.  "They can't be content to just show up and eat all the bird food.  No, they feel the need to smash the feeders all to heck in the process."  So, down come the feeders.  Of course, we won't know for sure when the bears are awake until we come home to find smashed feeders on the ground.  It's a catch-22 situation.

I'm not sure how the lack of feeders will affect Alicia's study.  But, better safe than sorry.  We live in bear territory and they just don't play well with others.