Alternative Uses For Old Halloween Decorations

Neither my mom or I felt like going to all the trouble of cooking and scraping our jack-o-lanterns after Halloween, so I went and set them on the back patio, to see if squirrels would go for them.

After a couple of days with no activity, I went out and put some birdseed - mostly sunflower seeds - inside each pumpkin, and a little around the mouth of each one. Today when I was outside I took the lid off of one of them, to see if that made any difference.

A few hours later...

Scenes around the house

I'm taking a moment to post some photos of my yard that I've taken over the last few days.

Actually, the first few are of the bird feeder hanging from the eaves just outside the backdoor. This is not your typical bird feeder. It's an upside-down feeder, with the holes placed under the perches!

The upside-down feeder is filled with thistle seed to attract goldfinches, but it's the upside-down-ness that really draws them. They have no problem at all simply flipping upside down for a few seconds to grab a seed, and the bigger birds like sparrows and house finches can't manage it! For a long time we hadn't seen any goldfinches for a while, just the bigger house finches or purple finches, which seemed to be bullying them away. Then when we got the upside-down feeder, we started seeing goldfinches again! And we found out that they were still around in the winter - but they lost their color! Instead of the bright canary-yellow (on the males, anyway) they are a drab gray-brown with hints of yellow.