Jeannie T. We have a beautiful maple tree on our neighbor's property..right along our driveway. Paul was going to have this one fellow come over & clean up the yard b/c he has been so busy doing everything else. I told him to wait until the tree dropped its leaves. So far we have been waiting for over a month & that dang tree just sits there. Too bad we are not strong enough, or we would go over & shake the leaves off the tree...only thing, it's a pretty good sized tree. Our neighbors are gone for the winter. They have another home in Phoenix & go down there once it gets cold up here. So it's up to us to get rid of all the leaves from their tree which fall all over our property. They also have a few others which contribute to the mess in our yard as well. When we lived in IL, we had big pine trees which grew up & down our driveway. We had many cardinals which nested in them & it was always so much fun to watch them coming & going with food, etc. Naturally, we had feeders in front & back of our house. My Mother gave us a feeder that if a squirrel would get on it, it would flip the squirrel off b/c of its weight. My husband even built feeders which attached to our windows in our family room & we could see the cardinals when they came to get their feed. They liked sunflower seeds the best. I have to admit, the following spring, all my gardens under those windows were a complete mess. I told Paul that as far as I was concerned, we need not do that again. It was fun watching the cardinals up close though. We also had a big maple behind our house & it was right over our house. When you came out on the back porch, if anything was up in that tree it would start to carry on. We had a squirrel build a nest up there & Paul was always afraid that one of us would startle it coming out of the back door & it would jump down on top of us. We tried moth balls up in the tree & that worked for a little while; however, the squirrel kept coming back. The tree was also a very messy tree & it dropped sap on the sidewalk that we used to walk up to our back porch. We would have company on Friday...Paul's friends would come over for a poker game & they would park their cars in back of our house. By the time they got back in their cars, they could barely see through the windshield b/c of all the sap that dropped on it. We finally had the tree taken down to the tune of around $900. It was a wonderful shade tree..but there were many other things about it that we were not pleased with. The previously owners had let their children plant their trees any where they wanted when they brought them home from school after celebrating Arbor Day. That maple tree, if lightning had ever hit it, it would have fallen straight on our home. The previous owner came back & the first thing she noticed was that the tree was gone. I think that Paul told her that it had gotten hit by lightning & we had to take it down. We took down so many trees in that yard. I guess the Mother didn't care where the kids planted them. One good thing, they planted the pine trees in groups & this is usually done up in WI., so if you lose a tree, you still have some left. Out back we had a cluster of around 4-5 pine trees & we planted all sorts of interesting things under those trees. I really enjoyed my Wild Ginger & my Jack in The Pulpit. If I still have it, I have some information regarding fried squirrel. A friend of mine outside of Payson is quite into CA news, etc. & he sent me this. He told me not to turn up my nose until I saw the picture (of the plate). If I have it, I'll forward it to you. ~Jen in Payson, AZ ----- Original Message ----- From: <askgranny@juno.com> To: <SOUTHERN-CHAT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:34 PM Subject: [SOUTHERN-CHAT] We're kinda squirrely... >I have no curtains on my front bedroom windows, just a screen of assorted > cobalt blue bottles..Nobody can see in , but I can look out and enjoy the > huge Maple tree between our house and the street....I can lie in bed when > I wake up each morning and watch the beautiful red cardinals and other > feathered friends flit around in the dark green streamers of ivy that > clothes the entire trunk of the tree...This morning I was lying there > drowsily planning my day and I saw a blur of movement as two gray > squirrels had a little wrassling match on a high limb....I saw a squirrel > taking some nesting material into the ivy awhile back , but haven't > spotted the nest yet...Tall trees around the yard and woods edge are well > populated with the leafy 'nests' but am guessing our resident joker is > building his nest a lot closer to the ground. > > I blame my niece, Little Jeannie, for our prolific squirrel population, > as I encouraged her years ago to release her pet squirrel over here when > it got old enough to fend for itself. Now, I can't swear her pet had > anything to do with it, but we've been blessed/cursed with a plethora of > the bushy tailed goomers ever since ....Goodbye apples, pears eaten at a > tender stage just for the seeds...etc...but they repay us by furnishing > us with many laughs. Hubby loves fried squirrels, but so far has resisted > temptation to thin out the ranks ...Jeannie T > ____________________________________________________________ > Scholarships for Moms > Grant Funding May Be Available to Those Who Qualify! > http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4cf5ec0cea3ca4829em06duc > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOUTHERN-CHAT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message