High Holy Mass of Contradictions

Yesterday when I posted my year in review stats, I briefly thought the 28th of December was just a tad too soon to wrap up the year. And then I dismissed that thought with a snort.

Well, my anal-retentive detail-oriented nature turned out to be right, because the number of bird feeders stolen this year has now increased by three. One of them was only a cheap suet cage, and the other two were relatively inexpensive, but the feeders themselves were still worth about $30 combined and they were full of feed, so that's another $10 or so.

And it's not the money anyway. Putting out feed for the birds isn't all that cheap a hobby even if nothing ever got stolen, so I'm prepared for a little expense here and there. It's the principle of it. As I mentioned in one of the previous posts about stolen feeders, we originally set up these feeders as a sort of memorial to my dad, who loved feeding the birds. Every time we lose one, I wish the thieves could be cursed with knowing the grief they're inflicting. (And now the number of posts tagged "dad" just went up by one, too.)

Actually, I realized that I underestimated the stolen bird feeder number anyway -- it was three the first time, and four the next time (three the day I wrote about it and one the day before). So it should have said seven yesterday, and it'll say 10 when I update it.

These were in our back yard and along the side of the house. I don't know why, but the theft of stuff from our back yard feels more invasive than the theft of stuff from our front yard. Well, yeah, I guess I do know why: the front is so public and accessible, and people walk by on the sidewalk all the time, and it's only a few steps off the sidewalk to anywhere in the front yard. It's hard to really secure anything, and somehow I just accept that now. But to get to where the feeders were in the back you have to come clear across our back yard -- not huge, but a good deal more than a few steps -- from the alley and right up next to the house. It's even more invasive that they went along the side of the house, right next to our bedroom window. That all feels pretty creepy to me.

And I haven't reported it to the police because every time I call in one of these petty thefts, the person on the phone (not sure if the person who answers the non-emergency line is an officer or an operator or what) acts like I'm annoying them with trivialities. I'm certainly not looking for police action or for an officer to come to my house or anything, but in my mind, even the little stuff like this matters in case a pattern evolves and can be linked with larger thefts or break-ins. But from the way the police act over the phone, you'd think I was reporting that someone looked at my cat funny and I want them arrested.

Anyway, I'm irritated beyond belief.

As in, we have them. I mean, what's the point of living with six cats (including one ninja kitten) if rats aren't afraid to come near our house?

Not that the cats can actually get to them. The rats have only made it into the walls in a few spots. But it's so weird -- I can actually hear them thumping and squeaking in the walls.

We think there are only a few. Karsten already trapped one a few days ago and more traps are going out today. I'm pretty sure the bird seed all around the house is attracting them, but whatever -- we're not going to stop feeding birds just because a few rats decided to crash the party. Get ready for the snap trap, suckers.

Germantown & Salemtown friends,

After losing several bird feeders to theft a few months ago and taking elaborate measures to secure what remained, this morning Karsten and I discovered our bird feeder pole and remaining feeders were gone. Not only gone, but the thief or thieves apparently got frustrated trying to remove them intact and bent the pole back and forth to break it off near the ground.

And actually, we were forewarned: yesterday we found that a small feeder had been stolen from the south side of the house, and the handle on one of the secured feeders in the front yard was twisted, as if someone had tried to break it off from the pole.

Not only are we frustrated at the property loss (the last theft included about $60 worth of feeders -- this time, the dollar value is more like $150), but it's upsetting on a much more significant level: the feeders were a memorial of sorts to my father, who always loved feeding the birds in his own yard.

Anyway, I filed a police report, and I'm letting you all know so you can be aware of the trend. You probably already know to secure your possessions, but here's a disappointing reminder to be extra cautious.

Take care and be safe,

- Kate O' at [home address]

Someone stole our bird feeders. Can you believe that shit?

We were out for a walk this afternoon, and got back around 6 PM -- I can remember church bells ringing as we approached our block. And in between then and 10 minutes ago, while it was thunderstorming, someone ripped off three of our four bird feeders from the front yard (a tube feeder, a finch feeder, and a hummingbird feeder). Neither of the two tube feeders on the side of the house are missing, nor are any of the three feeders in the back yard. But the ones in the front were the nicest, which was probably stupid, but it made us happy to look out and see them out there. Now they're gone, dammit.

I phoned in a police report -- the woman who took down the information probably thought I was crazy to be reporting such a minor theft, but hey, they came to over $70 value together, so that's not nothing -- and Karsten and I went out to look around and see if maybe someone just threw them aside. We saw footprints and were able to see how the person crossed the yard, but it didn't tell us anything more than that. And then it started raining again, so even if it was valuable evidence, it's gone now.

I'm just so incredibly disappointed in people who would steal bird feeders from someone else's yard. It's not like they're stealing food or other necessities -- it's just a plain ugly thing to do.

Good thing I was already in a bad mood, so this isn't really ruining it.

When I was out replacing a couple of the boxwoods along the front of the yard yesterday, it was getting close to sundown and the doves and grackles were getting pretty eager to eat at the feeders that were about 15 feet away from me. There were so many of them in the trees above me - literally hundreds! - I was starting to get nervous about the possibility of attack. But at one point, I stopped digging and sat quietly on the sidewalk in front of the house, and soon enough, they all started coming in to eat.

Most of the doves swooped in to feed on the ground, as is their habit, and most of the grackles stayed back in the trees, which is not their habit except that they're usually pretty skittish around us. (It's not uncommon to see upwards of 100 grackles in our front yard at sundown, as long as we're inside and no one is walking by on the sidewalk.) Anyway, I managed to get a few photos with my Treo of the birds starting to risk flying in for some food, and I made them into a QuickTime slide show (940 KB .mov file behind the link), but they're blurry and they really don't capture the magnitude of the experience. Picture many, many times the amount shown in the photos and imagine being just a few yards away the whole time. It was very cool.