squirrels

so hugh's been busy lately working to slowly eliminate the squirrel population in our backyard.

at first we thought that they were cute.

they'd run and play with each other all over the place, in and out of trees, you name it.

well then we started getting water in our bathroom wall and had to bring in a contractor to fix the roof and water-logged walls (thankfully not too badly, though, dont worry). turns out that the lead pipes that stick up out of the roof and act as air release for the plumbing had been completely eaten by the dumb squirrels. did i mention that they're made out of lead!? ugh. so we had them fixed and went on our merry way... only to have it start leaking again 2 weeks later! the contractors came back thinking that they'd missed something. oh no, it was the squirrels again. they actually pulled me up on the roof to check it all out (and then held a pow-wow trying to figure out what to do...)

a thousand dollars later (ugh!) and some nice little aluminum houses built around the pipes and we're still fighting the annoying creatures.

we've had offers to borrow dogs (thanks malia! wish you werent so far away), an electrical shock apparatus, and a pellet gun... guess which one he chose?? haha.

.

.

.
.

the carefully placed 'feeder' that H and F made