Hello All,    I thought I would share something with you all. I have been having 
trouble for months keeping the squirrels out of my bird feeders. No matter 
what I have tried with my feeders, the squirrels get to them. I stopped feeding 
for the summer and I have just recently put one feeder out again and of 
course, the squirrels who went away when the feeders came down were right 
back when the feeder went up. 
I tried getting one of those shepherds crooks thinking they wouldn't be able to 
climb it. Well, I was wrong. They were able to go right up. Then I remembered 
what a friend did to deter the squirrels. She had a wire that went from a tree 
to her house. The wire was strung through empty plastic soda bottles. She 
hung her feeders between the bottles and the squirrels could not walk to them 
without falling off. 
What I did was a bit different. I still wanted to use this hook that I had spent 
$20.00 on so I decided to take the soda bottles (2 liter) and cut the top and 
bottom off and place them over the hook and down the pole. I have them 
going almost all the way to the hook part. So far so good. The squirrels have 
tried to climb the feeder but the bottles are slippery, noisy and unstable and 
not good for climbing. I bought a short cheap feeder so the squirrels can't 
jump up and hold on to the bottom of it. Instead of filling my feeder daily, I am 
now filling it two to three a week. I was afraid I wouldn't get to feed the birds 
this year because it was getting so expensive but now I can. I will be putting 
up another feeder with thistle soon. 
To see a picture of this feeder, you can go to my blog at 
http://emeraldsnaturepics.blogspot.com/
Have a great day!    Anne

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