I suspect it's been around long enough that most birds have learned to avoid it, through trial and error. The goats would never touch it. In winter if food gets really scarce the birds might try the berries.
Neither bathroom sink in town has ever held water properly. Fortunately I never need them to do that. Recently the drain won't pop up at all upstairs. The tips of those little rods that control the stopper inside the drain have rusted and broken off on both sinks. Special trip to Lowes last night. All they offered was a universal fits-all kit and they were out of those. So I looked at the stacks of boxes above and saw a box of item # 112775. Not a soul working the floor in the plumbing, appliance, or nearby departments. High rise moving stairs with a sign "employees only" was right there in the same aisle. I got caught and scolded once before, using that. The rod inside the drain on these kits is plastic. Some reviews say they bend, but they seem too rigid to bend. Someone must have lost their temper. I learned why the handle thing would never stay up. Now everything works great on both sinks. They probably won't last long, but at least they won't rust and they aren't hard to replace.
Last week, I replaced the faucets in the bathroom sink and the cellar laundry tubs. I still have the kitchen faucet to do. t took awhile to find the same ones online and then for them to be delivered. We replaced our hot water tank in October 2021. The old one was from before we switched from the well water to city water, and was full of gunk. Well water or water softeners can play havoc with the insides of faucets. Plumbing has never been my favorite thing!
That's a lot of work you got done. I hate plumbing. It ties with painting. Others may disagree, but I would love to have city water out in the country. They came within 2 miles in one direction, and 6 miles in the other direction, of putting in city water on our road. The well water out there has iron. It builds up in the pipes and comes out like tomato juice whenever the pump goes off for a long time and starts back up. Try doing a load of laundry in that. City water isn't always perfect. Ours in town is loaded with calcium. Boil a pan dry and there is a white film . Shower heads eventually clog up with little gravely plugs. But I'll take it. Replaced kitchen and utility sink faucets for my mother in the mobile home. It makes me dizzy to crawl under the sink and look up. It's probably mostly in my mind. Still trying to figure out why the connections don't work in the bathroom sink drain out there. I did finally find the old missing piece I thought I left at Lowes. Will try again this weekend.
Never start a plumbing project in the evening or on a weekend. Whenever you touch something, another thing breaks. If you have to run for parts, its better when the stores are open. Examine the instructions carefully before starting. Open the box and examine all of the parts, before starting, keeping the box intact, to reseal and return if necessary. I will tackle electric projects before plumbing ones, any day. When we had the well, we used a softener for the hard water. After getting the city water, and replacing the indoor pipes with copper, we now use the well for the outdoor faucet to water with, and not for drinking.
Question. The other day there were two hatches of kildeers running up and down my driveway, parents making it challenging to get in and out trying to lead my car off the drive with that broken wing act and my waving at them yelling 'Get out of the way!' They are worse than my chickens! Two days later, all were gone. I did not run them over. I worried that my barn cat who loves birds, got the babies. Where do kildeers go after fledging? The roads all around here with gravel siding are very dangerous to them but I wish they would go off to the parking area instead of the drive.
Mary, I've been studying these bluebirds for 5 months and still don't understand "why" they do many of the things they do. But it's fun to speculate. I've never even seen a killdeer. Just pulled up a picture. Unique looking bird. I doubt anything bad happened. The adults are probably just showing them another new place, and what to do there. That's my guess.
Don't be sorry. I still enjoy speculating about birds. Just caught Mr. Mockingbird this morning. He doesn't usually stay put long enough to bother trying to video. In spite of a lawnmower and street construction, he is loud enough to hear. A helicopter finally drove him off. How often does a helicopter show up.
The heat pump that cools the upstairs in town is a 2 ton split system. It was installed over 30 years ago. Before that there were only window units. The air handler and emergency heat coil are in the attic crawlspace. The rest is in the big box with the fan outside. I know nothing about the parts in that box, except some need replaced from time to time. That air handler just fit between the ceiling joists in the hallway. The installers needed to cut only a 14" x 20" hole in the ceiling to get it up there, and then used that hole for the return register. I remember when they did it, because I didn't think it could be done. It turned out to be a neat job, and arguably the best outcome of any remodeling project on the house. A couple of weeks ago the AC quit putting out cool air---90 degrees up there in the late afternoons. I called the man who worked on the heat pump out in the country (Mr. B). He said the the amount of refrigerant in the system didn't even register on his meter. Checked all the lines up to and including the air handler for leaks. All I heard him say was (1) the air handler would have to be replaced, and (2) the condenser might be ruined by running that low on refrigerant. I assumed the condenser was just another part inside that big box. Mr. B said they don't make air handlers that small anymore. The access hole would have to be cut wider, and he didn't volunteer to do it. He also mentioned he might have some equipment in his shop he could cobble together to get things up and running temporarily. I found a 3 ton Mitsubishi system online with two smaller air handlers that could be tied together to create 2 zones. They are only 8" wide. Two zones seemed like a good idea and you wouldn't have to cut a ceiling joist. Texted him with the model number. And yes, it would be expensive. I'm aware of that! Thursday he called to tell me he found one 2 ton system he thought might work, but it would require chiseling out some of a ceiling joist. He also trashed my Mitsubishi idea. I expected that, and accepted that he knows best about those things. But I expected the reasons to be more than it was too expensive and difficult (expensive) to install, and would require new (expensive) ductwork. I don't like the idea of chiseling out a ceiling joist. So I told him I'd think about it and let him know after Memorial Day. (to be continued)
(continuing the previous story...) Thursday night I started thinking outside the box. If I'm going to have to hire a carpenter to cut out a big chunk of ceiling joist, and reinforce it properly, this might be a good opportunity to make some major changes. Long boring story. It might take a month to arrange all that carpentry work and other things. Bottom line, Mr. B's 2-ton unit might end up not being big enough down the road. And June starts seriously hot weather. Another ballooning project, best left to cooler weather. Friday, May 27th Mr. B called again and I wouldn't let him talk until he explained in detail what was going on so I could understand it. 1) There is nothing wrong with the air handler! The leak is only in the outside unit. 2) The whole outside unit is what he calls the condenser, and that is ruined. 3) The old air handler was designed for R-22 refrigerant. Any new condenser is built for the new R-410A refrigerant. You can't use an R-22 air handler with a new condenser because the pressure in the lines is much higher for R-410A. I think Mr. B is not the person to call to make any serious permanent changes. Everything he says is either directly, or indirectly, related to cost, and what is cheapest. It would take more than 10 fingers to count the number of jobs I've had done where people cut corners determined to make the job as affordable as possible. Often they run into unexpected difficulties and cut corners even more. And many times I wasn't even aware of it until after the fact. Mr. B clearly has that way of thinking. I remembered his comment about "cobbling something together," just to get through the summer. My whole house is cobbled together, so what else is new. Made him explain that in detail also. He has a new 2-ton AC condenser sitting in his shop right now, and he would retrofit it backwards to the old R-22 refrigerant. R-22 is not a problem because he said he bought up several tens of thousands of pounds after it was banned. This cobbled system would only use the emergency heat coil on the air handler for heat. He could install it in the morning in 2 hours for $1900, and would credit some of the expense on a new system (after a larger hole is cut out of course) when I do that. I said OK. He came out Saturday and it was done by noon. So I will continue to contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer for at least until cold weather comes, unless the old air handler decides to conk out. [ He did clean and "service" it. If it ain't broke, fix it until it is? ] Although I tried to tell this story as if there was a logical progression of events, it didn't happen that way at all. I never had such a confusing encounter before. Anyway, the new "condenser" is cute, and about 1/3 the size of the old one, and it is freezing upstairs right now. I need to turn the thermostat higher. I may get hit by a bus tomorrow and all this thinking will have been wasted.
[QUOTE="Nancy Hart, post: 602418, member: 823 Thursday he called to tell me he found one 2 ton system he thought might work, but it would require chiseling out some of a ceiling joist. He also trashed my Mitsubishi idea. I expected that, and accepted that he knows best about those things. But I expected the reasons to be more than it was too expensive and difficult (expensive) to install, and would require new (expensive) ductwork. I don't like the idea of chiseling out a ceiling joist. So I told him I'd think about it and let him know after Memorial Day. (to be continued)[/QUOTE] Never hire a chiseler!