Oh yeah?

We'll see about that.

“I am smarter than a squirrel,” I proclaimed, marching from the house, onward and upward in noble pursuit of the infallibility of my claim. That was two months and 50-pounds of sunflower seeds ago; and though it send me into the depraved depths of humiliation and shame, the tenebrous realm of ignominious admission that my frail and wretched self is but mere mortal dust, yea, verily, brothers and sisters, I here avow and rise to attest that I am not smarter than a squirrel.

It all began a few months ago, when my wife brought home a new bird feeder, pretty, but unlike the other two that are spring-loaded squirrel-proof, the new one is not; and it took only a couple of days for the squirrels to figure that out. The four feeders – one is for hummingbirds – are suspended on a wire that stretches from the upper level of my house to a pole on a corner of a deck, a span of about 30-feet. The wire was necessary to keep the birdseed high enough away from the bears, who in the past have ravaged bird feeders supported on steel rods. They bent those ⅜-inch rods into pretzels. (But I am smarter than a bear.)

One who is unfamiliar with wildlife in the great outdoors may think it impossible for a squirrel to jog along on a 3/16-inch stainless steel cable, and they would be wrong. “I’ll fix you,” I told those itchy vermin, and proceeded to put sheet metal obstacles on the wire. That didn’t work. I put on more, different sheet metal obstacles. I turned to elaborate sheet metal obstacles, all to no avail.

“Okay, fine,” I told them, “I know what to do now.” That’s when I disconnected the cable on one end and slid three, five-foot long, ½-inch PEX pipes onto the wire. Soon the squirrels were galloping across the blue plastic pipes like they weren’t even there. See, I thought they would get on the tubing and it would spin them upside down. Nope. Not that it hurts a squirrel to fall twelve feet. They always land on their paws, their legs having acted as shock absorbers.

“Okay, I’m not done with you yet.” PEX cutter in hand, I cut the 15-feet of pipe into one-inch pieces, all the while assuring myself that once the rodents with bushy tails tried to cross on the long line of short pieces, they would be flipped off the wire for sure. I went back inside and when I looked out I saw two squirrels dancing the “Blue Danube” waltz on the little blue tubes.

Channeling the venerated and incomparable Winston Churchill, I told the rats, “I will never surrender.” I returned to the task of fabricating a sheet metal top for the hapless, defenseless bird feeder. “I might not keep you off the wire, but you’ll get no more free meals from me.”

A half-hour and a few bloody cuts later, I had a lid about 16-inches square, with turned-down edges and pop-riveted corners, all nice and neat. I installed it on top of the cheap, worthless bird feeder, and waited. The next day my wife videoed a squirrel lying in the tray of the feeder, lazily filling his mouth with sunflower seeds.

“Oh yeah?”

I added more sheet metal, two inches more on four sides. “No way you can get to the seeds now, beggars.” I had of course spoken prematurely.

Proved wrong once more, I cut out a two-foot square piece from a roll of steel trim coil. No straight lines, no turned down edges, no rivets, screw it. I slapped it on top of the extender pieces on top of the original roof on top of the no-good feeder, and went inside and got a shotgun and dared those thieving fleabags to again come and test their skills.

So far they are losing weight. They may be tenacious, but so am I.