I QUIT I QUIT I QUIT!!!!

I woke up with the perfect answer. I'm just going to surrender ... sorta. I'm going to REMOVE the bird feeder. It's heading on toward Spring here, and the birds don't need to be artificially fed. I'll clean the feeder and store it away. Then I'll take all of our left over birdseed and dump it over the neighbor's fence (after dark of course). She can deal with the damned squirrels and birdses.

Little Hawk: I really like your "Dome Home" idea. In fact, I woke up thinking of this song:

"Dome, Dome on the range,
Where the hungry squirrels are so strange,
For they're full of such greed,
That they eat all the seed,
That I often think they're deranged!"

Before I close this dumb note, I do want to add a serious contribution about one unique squirrel we have out here in Western Washington State. It's known as the "Douglas Squirrel." I suspect that it was named by the Lewis and Clark expidention on the "Voyage of Discovery in 1804-5.

They are quite remarkable. They are very small and red in color. They have a couple of unique features. One is their extreme aggresion. They only live in sub-alpine and alpine altitudes. I was hiking once when I came too close to tree that this one Douglass was guarding. He came charging me, running headfirst DOWN the tree, until his head was level with mine and only about two feet away. Then he demonstrated his other charactoristic ... he started SCREECHING at me at the top of his little lungs. Then he started his angry "CHIC CHIC CHIC" sound, while gnashing his teeth and daring me to come any closer. I know I hurt his feelings, but I started laughing so hard that I just made him madder. His angry outbursts have earned him the knick name of "Chickery," amongst the hikers.

Anyway, thanks for all your useful help. I'll just slink away from this battle, a brave but full defeated man. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson