Month: November 2010

Outsmarting the Squirrels

I think I finally outsmarted the squirrels…until tomorrow.
But for now I’ve put safflower seed in my bird feeder. I watched the squirrels prance up to the feeder like they were in charge. They took turns jumping up the pole, looking at the feeder and jumping away.
Meanwhile, I now have chickadees, titmouses, cardinals, woodpeckers and more eating at the feeder again…because there are no squirrels to chase them off.
Next step is to set up a squirrel feeder.

Favorite Places to Birdwatch

What are your favorite places in the US to birdwatch?

Mine? I used to love hanging out on Siesta Key for the shore birds, especially the Roseate Spoonbills. My other favorite place is the Celery Fields in Sarasota FL.

Other than that, my own backyard…there’s not a great variety of species but it’s fun to sit out back and observe bird behaviors and listen to them talk to each other.

I look forward to your comments.

My Garden Buddy

This little guy just hangs out on our bush near the front door all day. He shows up for a few weeks in the spring and for a week or two in the fall. Don’t know what he does the rest of the year, but I can always count on it lying across the top of the bush sunning himself during this brief visit.

My son named it George.

George

Louisiana Roadtrip

My husband writes for, and owns, Dixiedining.com (and www.dixiedining.wordpress.com) so it’s not unusual for the family to load up in the car and take a road trip, weekend or day-long, to look for good local food.  We haven’t been to Louisiana for a while so it was only convenient for us to tie in a family fun trip with some Dixie dining.

The travelling Star Wars exhibit opened last week in Lafayette and since our boys are Star Wars fanatics we decided to check it out.  The museum is small but fit a lot of goodies inside.  We arrived at a great time: between the scheduled school field trips for that day and the after-school crowd so we had the museum almost to ourselves.  Starting point was the Millenium Falcon ride…very cool, and worth the extra expense.  Then we saw a robotics show featuring C3PO.  Then off to the exhibits.  Some of the items on display were actual props from the movies.  There were models and miniatures as well.  Costumes gave us a real idea of the size of some of the characters and how small someone had to be to fit inside the R2D2 costume.

The exhibit also featured Star Wars’ impact on robotics, medicine, and technology.  There was  a hands-on gallery where you could make robots and manipulate them to move with magnets and balance. 

The trip was fascinating and took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to complete, without the crowds around us.

Star Wars Exhibit

Darth Vader

An actual prop from the films

Next came the dining part of the trip.  You can read about it this week by going to www.dixiedining.wordpress.com. 

Our visit to Avery Island

Everywhere you look, there's sugar cane

Our trip home took us on a Plantation adventure as we wove through Louisiana towns along the famous River Road.  There were plenty of these homes to see and plenty of sugar cane country side in between them.  The only one we really stopped for was Oak Alley where we took a tour.  The inside of the house was beautiful but I liked the grounds, with their gardens and trees, better.  It was a great tour and I highly recommend it.  If you have the time, which we didn’t, I suggest stopping at a few of them.  Of course it will cost you for the tours, but I think it would be fun.

Oak Alley Plantation

The Oak Alley oaks behind us

We stopped in New Orleans for a late lunch.  Central Grocery was closed and the boys were sad because they were dying for a Muffaletta.  Thankfully the restaurant next door, Franks, was opened and we dined there.  One of the “Sopranos” stars was dining two tables away.  I didn’t watch the show so I can’t tell you which character he played.  My husband might mention it in his blog so you can find out there.

We escaped NOLA just in time to avoid Saints’ traffic and drove on home.  Our next trip is in the planning stage.  Maybe we’ll head south for the winter.