Dinner time at The Ranch

We are enjoying sharing our lives with the various wildlife here at The Ranch, even with the most recent bear attack that took ten of my neighbor's chickens.  Fortunately, Neal built our girls a Chicken Fort Knox, equipped with electric wire, and we have had no issues with predators.  Unfortunately for our neighbors, they didn't properly lock up their chickens one night and a bear was able to raid the chicken coop through an opened door.  The Department of Wildlife set a trap for the bear and he/she was caught a couple of days later, and hopefully relocated to an area far, far away. 

Not long after we moved here, we put out feeders for the birds....one for the hummingbirds, one for the finches, and one multi-species feeder for larger birds.  After purchasing one package of the ready-made hummingbird food, I realized I could make my own sugar water for much less.  And, in no time, the hummers realized they had found a "sweet deal" indeed.  We have decided we need to put out a second hummingbird feeder, to give the lesser aggressive ones a chance to eat.  For such little things, they sure can get territorial!

The finches, on the other hand, are pretty ticked off at me.  I ran out of the $12 per 3 lbs bag of thistle seed and decided to order in bulk online.  You can see the empty thistle feeder to the left of the hummingbird feeder.  I got a really good deal, but they were back-ordered, so it's been over a week since the finches had any food from our buffet.  Somehow, I think they will forgive me when the bulk seed is delivered later this week!